


Ghosts of City Boys

by MARS (SuperFortress)



Category: Akira - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Art, Fanart, Gen, Illustrated, Post-Canon, post-akira, sad kaneda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperFortress/pseuds/MARS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been around 6 months since Tetsuo, Akira, and the espers vanished in the last massive implosion within the ruins of Neo Tokyo. The people of the Great Tokyo Empire are slowly but surely rebuilding, thanks to Kei’s firm leadership and assistance from the International Government. </p><p>Meanwhile, Kaneda suffers nightmares about Tetsuo’s last moments. Memories of his former friend haunt him as he struggles to find new purpose in life. Even beyond the rift that Tetsuo has long since crossed, they are, somehow, still bound together by the ties of fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I finished reading the manga a couple years ago, the characters of Akira always stuck with me; specifically, Kaneda and Tetsuo, and their friendship-turned-bad. I always wondered what the emotional impact of Tetsuo's decent into madness would be on Kaneda, as Kaneda's emotional state is only really touched upon in the very last part of the manga. 
> 
> A lot of this fic is the culmination of smaller details in the manga that hint at the relationships between the characters, in my own interpretation of events. (Not to say that there isn't some wishful thinking on my part, haha!)
> 
> All the illustrations are my own.
> 
> Please review and tell me what you think

__  


_Kaneda opens his eyes, dazed. He surveys his surroundings, trying to ascertain where exactly he is through the haze of disorientation._

__  


_ _

_ _

_Oh, right._

_The olympic stadium. Again._

__  


_Chunks of broken concrete litter the center of the structure, the entire thing desecrated by Tetsuo’s mutated body, which lies writhing in the Arena like some….fucked-up centerpiece to an unfinished structure. The body continually throbs, parts of it expanding and deflating like a panting, wounded animal. It’s hard to believe that the thing was once a person._

_Was once his friend._

_The atmosphere is eerily still--nobody else is here. Not Kei, not Kaisuke, not the colonel,_   
_Chiyoko, the espers…...Kaneda is alone. With…….Tetsuo._

_Slowly, he navigates through the concrete wreckage, making his way towards the mutating form. In the back of his mind, he knows that what he is doing is crazy. Why is he walking towards it? What the fuck is he doing? He should be heading for the hills before he gets caught in the inevitable explosion that will follow all this chaos._

_Nonetheless, he carries himself forward towards danger, motivated by some visceral feeling in his gut._

_As if in response to his presence, the mass deflates, it’s fetus-like form shrinking down, smaller and smaller, taking a form that Kaneda is much more familiar with._

__  


 

 

_ _

_Tetsuo collapses to the ground, like a lifeless puppet. His entire body is drained of pigment, making him look unnaturally pale white, his veins popping with color like lines of ink. His back and his right arm continue to mutate and roil, as if they are a separate creature entirely. He's panting and covered in a sheen of sweat that makes him look sick, strange and silvery in the fading daylight. He weakly raises himself up, one arm supporting his body while the other hand winds itself into his hair, clutching his head like he's in pain._

_"Ka.....neda....." The syllables of the name are disjointed, followed by a muffled groan as he doubles over, resting his forehead against the ground. He’s breathing in gasps, interjected with miserable-sounding keening noises._

_It’s pathetic._

_Tetsuo raises his head. Kaneda can see the dark circles under his eyes, irises reduced to a cloudy gray, welling with tears of pain. The scowl--a furrowed brow accompanied by a smug grin that Kaneda had become accustomed to seeing--is gone. In it’s place is misery and desperation._

_Tetsuo’s eyes pierce his own, and he feels as if his heart is about to explode into a bloody pulp. He wants to move forward; to act on his gut feelings. But he’s rooted to the spot, paralyzed._

_“Kaneda…..please…..” Tetsuo’s voice is weak and raw._

_“It hurts...”_

_Their gazes lock for a moment, and Kaneda feels as if Tetsuo has reached into his soul to grasp for something that was just out of reach. He remembers memories from before--memories that he had blocked from his consciousness, that he had replaced with the hatred, rage and hurt that had fueled his actions in the past few months--of when they were both young and helpless, and had only each other._

__  


_Even as he is anchored in place, he feels as if he is being pulled forward by an invisible force, inviting him to follow his instincts._

_Then, Tetsuo lets his head drop down to the ground again, and he lets out a wretched sound as tendrils of flesh begin to branch out from his back. As the power begins to consume his body once more, he gazes back up at Kaneda with his cheek pressed into the ground._

_Kaneda breaks forward. He drops to his knees and clutches at Tetsuo’s shoulders, even as Tetsuo’s body starts to wind around his hands and arms, gradually enveloping them both, as if Tetsuo is using the last of his strength to hold it back._

_“No…...Fuck- Tetsuo!!” Tetsuo seems to lose consciousness as Kaneda shakes him, slumping into Kaneda’s chest._

_“Tetsuo, wake up! You have to control it!!”_

_It feels as if Tetsuo is dissolving into his own flesh._

_“TETSU-”_

  
  


Kaneda’s eyes open wide as he shoots up from the bed.

 

“-O!!”

 

The room is still and quiet save for his own labored breathing and the sound of wind blowing through deserted city streets.

He lies back down, trying to ignore the trembling of his shoulders as he wipes his eyes and tries to regain control of his breathing.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea so uh,,,  
> as much as i would like to illustrate every chapter, i think I'm just going to draw all the illustrations later and upload them as they're finished, instead of postponing the chapter for the sake of making more drawings. So I guess you'll just have to use your imaginations, haah!

The sun rises, and Kaneda with it. He gets up, and fantasizes about having a real, hot bath as he gets dressed--he didn’t fully appreciate the privileges of having running water until after Neo Tokyo’s destruction--eats a few protein bars, and gets ready to start the day.

The routine still feels odd, despite itself. Before, Kaneda considered his life to be a whirlwind of instinct-based decisions, unpredictable; he never thought about the future, because he didn’t believe there was one. He’d lived as if he’d be a teenager forever, roaming the streets and attending school when he felt like it, abusing medications and beating up rival gangs in abandoned parking lots. 

In retrospect, maybe he wouldn’t have been so carefree if it had occurred to him how finite that time of his life would be. Even though he didn’t have much, he’d had everything; a city to prowl through, a messy but workable apartment, a flashy motorbike, tons of girls to flirt and fuck with, and his crew and their constant loyalty and friendship. 

Now? He has a dingy little apartment with no running water and barely any electricity running, save for a tiny generator he managed to get working. His bike is slowly but surely returning to it’s original functionality, but the scrapes and scars on the shell are probably unfixable. He and Kaisuke are now the last remaining members of the Capsules. Without a gang to lead, Kaneda is now nothing short of an ordinary citizen, a survivor of the great disaster.

Kei…..they’d spent some time together, for real; and it was good...but short lived. Kei was mature, beautiful, and educated, unlike any girl that Kaneda had ever fooled around with. Despite having plenty of encounters before, it was his first real relationship. He wanted it to actually work, so he tried not to treat her like he did the other girls; he tried to be attentive and kind, the type of person that Kei would want to stay with. To love. 

Tetsuo’s emerging psychic powers and the ensuing chaos that followed had pushed Kaneda and Kei together, bonding with one another in the face of incredible uncertainty; and for a time, that was enough. But without the background noise of danger and desperation, the differences between them became more apparent.   
Kaneda was coarse by nature, a risk-taker, bold, always working on instinct and going with his gut without thinking of the consequences. Kei, on the other hand, was sophisticated and smart, and knew what to do before it even had to be done. It became apparent that they came from completely different worlds; Kaneda, a teenage delinquent, and Kei, a mysterious freedom fighter. 

Kei started getting involved with the reconstruction of the city, while Kaneda trailed behind her in a daze; It was only after the storm that his life had become had blown over that it hit him how misplaced he was, without gangs to fight or pills to pop, or school to play hooky on. His entire life had revolved around The Capsules and their escapades; he’d always been leader of the pack, fancying himself more important than he was. Now, he’s just one of many in a sea of lost and confused faces. He can’t become a leader and carry the remnants of Neo Tokyo into the future--how can he? The future was inconsequential to him, until it’s fate had hung in the balance. He can’t lead a city to the future the way he led his friends into violence and intoxication. 

Kaneda had thrived on the drunken revelry and chaos of the Neo Tokyo of before. Now, it’s as if the essence of his being has been cast aside, dismantled, to be delegated to the darker chapters of history books while he withers away into nothingness. If Kaneda was born of Neo Tokyo’s dark past, Kei is a symbol of it’s radiant future. She’ll lead the remnants of Neo Tokyo while Kaneda lags behind. 

While Kaneda was experiencing these revelations, Kei was moving on, like the balanced, responsible adult that she was; picking up the pieces of the old world and rebuilding them into something new, and better.   
Reminding him that the city of his youth is gone. And yet, he still feels like a child, lost and confused in a rapidly changing world. He hates it. 

Even almost a year after they met, he still doesn’t know Kei’s family name, or her birthday. Her hobbies, her passions (outside of government reform). Only that if it weren’t for her, he’d be dead, swallowed in the void of Tetsuo’s memories. And that, somehow, she’d had the kindness to let him into her heart, as callous and childish as he could be, albeit temporarily. 

Comfortable silences between them became uncomfortable. Kaneda tried to hide his frustration, but of course, it manifested in other ways, in the form of clenched fists placed firmly in his lap, instead of loose at his side to be held. Embraces became stiff, almost formal. Sometimes, he couldn’t even look her in the eye, and his inability to do so only made him more ashamed of his dwindling self. It was unbearable. Behind all the false confidence, he was just a stupid kid, who woke up in tears from nightmares, reaching out for Kei in the darkness like a pathetic child. Somehow, her willingness to comfort him only made him feel worse. He didn’t deserve her at all.

Eventually, Kei was the one to end things.   
They both came to the conclusion that it was inevitable, and parted ways as friends.   
They never discussed Kaneda’s emotions; thank god, he might’ve died of humiliation if he’d had to voice his thoughts. But deep down, he feels like she’d understood. He’s grateful, even though it pains him to think about anyone seeing past the mask, into the inner turmoil of his heart. 

And if Kaneda kept a scarf or a shirt, to keep under his pillow or pressed against his nose when nightmares wake him up at night, that’s his private business. He just needs a reminder of when he had a warm body to hold, instead of cool sheets and a worn pillow. 

Since the breakup, his recurring nightmares have only gotten worse. They seem so real, until he wakes up. 

Admittedly, watching Tetsuo mutate into a giant mass of flesh every night for the past two months has taken it’s toll. Kaneda hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in too long and he’s ready to snap. He’s tried to avoid thinking about it when he’s awake, but it seems like his subconscious won’t let him get away with locking his memories away, avoiding thinking about all the things he did wrong, the things he should have done differently. 

It took Kaneda a few months after the blast to realize that in the intricate web of events that occurred 6 months ago, he was only an insignificant speck, powerless in comparison to those that surrounded him. In retrospect, he probably couldn’t have changed anything, even if he’d tried. Regrets are pointless. And yet, the nightmares continue. 

In the face of both Tetsuo’s and Akira’s massive power, Kaneda had simply been bait; provoking his former friend in a final face off, in some misguided attempt to seek closure after Tetsuo’s betrayal--and his subsequent transformation into a drugged-up homicidal psychopath. It didn’t occur to him until recently that in several instances, Tetsuo probably could have killed him in a heartbeat. 

But he didn’t. 

“Because I’m your friend….” A voice echoes faintly in his head. Kaneda tries to block it out.

It's early morning in late August, and Kaneda feels like destroying something.

 

~~~~~~~~~

 

Kaisuke is coming up the sidewalk towards Kaneda's makeshift hovel when he spots Kaneda walking his bike out from it's hiding place in an alleyway behind the apartment building. He speeds up pace. "Oi, Kaneda! Where have you been? I haven't seen you around in a couple days."

"Oh, hey! I dunno, i've just been junk hunting for parts mostly." Kaneda looks horrible; the dark circles under his eyes are obvious, and he has a defeated air about him that’s been lingering for a few weeks now--Kaisuke’s noticed.

"So where are you going now?"

"I dunno, just for a ride, i guess."

Kaneda props up the bike stand and leans against the wall, and they wait for a conversation that will never come. Normally, they would be making jokes and exchanging witty banter by now, but all kaisuke can think about is how beat down Kaneda looks. He wants to ask, but he knows that his head might get bitten off if he does.

Wordlessly, he pulls a box of cigarettes from his pocket--a rarity nowadays, they’ve found-- and offers it to his friend. "Oh thank god," Kaneda says with a pained grin as he takes one and places it in his mouth. Kai pulls out a lighter. 

They smoke in companionable silence. 

"Hey, thanks for the smoke, Kai. I'm gonna head out now though,so...I guess I'll see you around?"  
"Yeah, of course," Kai replies, distracted, "Have a good ride then"

"Thanks, I'll see ya later."

As he watches Kaneda ride off, Kaisuke decides to go talk to Kei.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna keep adding these chapters.....no point in waiting......

After the destruction of the Akira empire and the resolution that followed, Kei spent a lot of time thinking about what she was grateful for. 

She was grateful that she managed to survive the destruction of Neo Tokyo. She was grateful she met Kaneda when she did, and that he was there for her when circumstances were at their worst. 

Currently, she's grateful that, with the help of the Americans, she and the restoration teams have finally set up a makeshift water filtering facility, because now she can finally take a real shower. It feels so good to be truly clean again, after months of bathing in the Bay to conserve clean drinking water. 

Kei set herself to work immediately after the official declaration of independence of the “Great Tokyo Empire” to the UN. At first, citizens were fearful of their new makeshift government--the term “Empire” seemed to scare people, a bit--but before long they began to accept and embrace the efforts of Kei, Kaneda, and the others, and everyone began to work together to restore the city. While making it clear that the United Nations forces couldn’t take control, they accepted assistance and resources in the form of food and medical supplies, as well as the technology they needed to build new shelters and to restore power lines and the water supply. It’s been only 5 months since Akira’s final explosion, and rubble still lies in the streets, but the the people of Tokyo are picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and moving forward. 

To Kei’s surprise (and satisfaction) she’s become somewhat of a leader in her new community. When people were first coming out of hiding in the days after the final explosion, everyone was dazed and confused, having no idea where to begin rebuilding; then, slowly but surely, people began to gather behind Kei, as she and Kaneda surveyed the city for the weak and injured. Eventually they were arranging teams of people to follow their motorcycle squad in trucks, as they searched the city for survivors. Kei would go out with the teams and help them treat the injured, and they began seeing her as the boss of the operation, with Kaneda being her second in command.

Privately, in her own head, Kei thought this was hilarious. Kaneda?? Second in Command???? Wow. What a thought. But nonetheless, it was true. Even Kaneda, being the wild free spirit that he is, deferred to her expertise when it came to bringing the people of the city back up on their feet. As funny as it is, it made sense. Kaneda was a good leader in a motorcycle gang, but after all; it WAS a gang. It wasn’t exactly a neighborhood association.

But ultimately, Kaneda wasn’t built to work under an authority; not even her own. Perhaps it was one of the reasons why they had grown apart in the few months after the disaster; they’d been equals for so long, until after the constant atmosphere of danger had passed. Then, suddenly, she was the one in charge--she had the skills that the people needed, while Kaneda could do little but stand by. 

As the flames of excitement died down, their differences became more prominent. Comfortable silences in conversations lasted too long, as they ran out of things to say. Kaneda began having night terrors, and Kei tried to comfort him during his long sleepless nights. 

Kei was the one to end it; for both Kaneda’s sake, and her own. In her heart, she knew that she was a distraction from Kaneda’s repressed emotions. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, or that he was a bad person--they had really loved each other. The emotions there had been real. 

They just weren’t what either of them needed. It was painful, but simple. Kei would always love Kaneda, as deeply as the bonds of friendship go, for always being there for her--they would always be friends. But the romance was like a firework; it exploded and fizzled out, leaving warm memories and melancholy behind. 

Soon after, he appeared less and less around the encampment, preferring to keep to himself and contribute in other ways, by bringing scrap metal and dismantled engines from wrecked cars for them to reuse. Kei hasn’t seen him in a few weeks.

She knew it was inevitable, but she still feels guilty sometimes, thinking about the sparsely furnished apartment that Kaneda had wanted to share with her. He'd tried so hard to make things work.....but in the end, it didn't.

Some things are doomed to fall apart. They both know that, better than anyone else.

 

 

After one shower, Kei feels like she’s been reborn--an exaggeration, yes, but the feeling of relief is so palpable that she can’t help but consider it a religious experience. If she was the type, she might consider converting to a new religion after that one shower--but fortunately, she’s not that impressionable. As she exits the shower, Chiyoko hands her a change of clothes with a soft smile on her gruff face. There is a silent understanding between them; from this moment on, they can wash themselves of the past and begin anew. 

Kei pulls the collar of her new, clean shirt up to her nose to smell the mildly fragrant detergent, and marvels at the wonders of human innovation; “It’s amazing what just one shower can do, after months of not bathing, Chiyoko. I feel like a new person!” 

Chiyoko quietly chuckles: ”I would be a bit concerned if you could be so changed just by bathing! But yes,” she says, as they exit the shower facilities, passing by a long line of people all eagerly waiting to be clean again.

One of her subordinates shouts from the line “Kei!! How does it feel?” with a big grin on his face. 

“Fantastic!” she replies, “You should see for yourself!” She smiles back, the cheer becoming infectious. Its funny, thinking of everyone’s spirits being so uplifted by something so simple, but nevertheless, everyone is smiling.

She and Chiyoko walk through the little settlement. It’s not perfect; comprised of a few small but intact apartment buildings that were left mostly undamaged by the explosions, it’s crowded and grungy, and medical tents and makeshift shelters occupy the courtyards in between each building. As they reach the edge of the encampment, Chiyoko gives her a brief nod and returns to her duties. Kei decides to continue her walk, taking some much needed time to think. In the past few weeks, she's had no time to herself, constantly busy with helping to set up pipelines and distribute food portions.

But, things are looking up. Because of the city’s inactivity, the pervading layer of smog that once enshrouded Neo Tokyo has lifted. And, somehow, the water in the bay is clean. All the pollutants that had infected the seawater surrounding the city had dissolved in the final explosion. Suddenly, after years of infertility, the bay is teeming with sealife. 

It’s oddly poetic that the final explosion that took the lives of Tetsuo, Akira and the espers--a force so incredibly destructive--could, in it’s wake, bring forth such a huge burst of life. Fisherman are taking advantage of the fact, and for a solid month they've been feeding the entire settlement. After eating synthetic fish for such a long time, real, freshly caught fish seems like a luxury. 

 

Kei is snapped out of her reverie when she hears footsteps approaching from behind. She turns around to see Kaisuke, with a half-smoked cigarette in his teeth and a thoughtful expression on his face. When they lock eyes, he gives a smile in greeting: "Kei! How is junktown running these days?" Kei laughs at the placeholder name, that seemed to be catching on with the inhabitants of the settlement, "I heard you have running water now!"

"Thats right," she replies, "We finally got everything up and running this morning. The first thing everyone wants to do is bathe!" Kai sniggers, and Kei seizes the opportunity to snatch the cigarette from his mouth and flick it on the ground, crushing it under the sole of her boot. "Which reminds me; now that i'm clean again, i don't want you boys getting the smell of cigarettes into my clean clothes."

"Aaaww, Kei! You know those are hard to come by!" Kai lamented in exaggerated distress. Kei laughed, and they walked together in the street, as the late morning transitioned into noon. It was funny how she and Kaisuke got along so well, despite their differences. She supposes that was the crux of the problem with Kaneda. They hadn’t really had time to become friends. 

She resolves to fix that. 

There is a lull in the conversation, until Kaisuke’s expression changes to one of ease to one of concern. “Hey...have you seen Kaneda around lately?” 

Kei’s train of thought halts, and she turns to Kai. “No, why? Has he gone missing?” Her heart drops out of her chest for a moment. 

“No! No, no, nothing like that. I was just wondering if you’d seen him.” Kai makes a pacifying motion with his hands. “It’s just…..he’s been…..weird, lately. Keeping to himself a lot,” He looks down at the tip of his shoe, absentmindedly scraping it against the pavement. “I saw him this morning. He looks pretty bad. Like, he looks like a zombie, like he hasn’t slept in months.”

Kei feels only partially relieved. She hopes to god that their breakup isn’t the issue; she doesn’t know how she would handle it if she did. 

Kaisuke suddenly takes a deep breath and turns to face her. “Can you talk to him? I know you guys broke up and all, so it’d probably be awkward...” His eyes are pleading, “...but I can’t do it--he’d probably punch me if i asked him about his feelings.” He looks down at his boots again, a nervous habit. “The thing is...I know there’s something going on with him, but….I think you’re the only person he’d really be honest with.” 

There is a beat of silence. “Alright, I’ll talk to him.” 

“You will?” Kaisuke breaths a sigh of relief. “Thank god, I was afraid I’d have to ask him myself!” 

Kei smiles, not letting the unease show on her face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE COMES THE AAAANGST  
> DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNN  
> Also I'm just gonna let u guys know that in case it wasn't abundantly clear, Kei and Kaneda are frIENDS. They are not together-together, but I really love their overall friendship outside of a romantic context, I think it's a lot more interesting than a romance between the two.   
> That being said, here's some fun times with Kaneda and Kei

When Kei arrives at the front door (barely, it’s practically falling off it’s hinges) of Kaneda’s apartment building (in more accurate terms, the abandoned apartment building in which Kaneda now resides) , she knocks on the door once to no avail. She opens up the door and yells up the stairwell: “Kanedaaa? It’s Kei!” to hear no answer. 

She decides to let herself in. After all, Kaneda isn’t exactly one to stick to social niceties anyway, so he won’t mind it. Probably. To her surprise, the room floods with light when she absentmindedly flicks the power switch as she passes through the doorway. 

His apartment is, as predicted, a mess. The tiny front foyer filled with boxes of scavenged circuitry and car parts, opening into a little living room with a ratty old couch and a tv hooked up to a generator that whirs quietly in the corner. The kitchen is full of empty wrappers and cans, a few dirty plates fill the sink. Wiring leads from the generator in the corner, along the walls and out the kitchen window, where several solar panels have been rigged facing east to catch the morning sunlight. Ah, that explains why the lights are working, she thinks to herself. While the apartment is messy, Kaneda’s technical handiwork is surprisingly neat and organized. Kei laughs to herself at the surprising contradiction. The apartment sort of smells like him, like sweat and copper. It occurs to her that she should probably tell him to come use the shower facilities sometime soon. 

She then hears the door down the stairwell open, followed by a slamming noise and the slow clomp of tired footsteps trudging up the creaky steps. Kei quickly flings herself into a casual sitting position on the couch, as if she hadn’t just been snooping. 

When Kaneda opens the front door, it takes him a good few seconds to notice her there as he flings down the heavy looking backpack he carries, the contents of which clank together when it hits the floor. In those few seconds, Kei notices the the bags under his eyes. Kaisuke was right; Kaneda looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in months. There’s a scratch on his temple, that looks fresh, and his hands are bruised up. He looks a bit like he was tossed through a meat grinder. 

“WOAAh!! Kei, when’d you get here?!” Kaneda blurts out in surprise. 

“Only a minute ago,” she replies, “I was in this part of the neighborhood and I haven’t seen you in a while, so i figured I’d see how you’re doing.”

Kaneda grins sheepishly. “If I’d known I was going to have company i would’ve cleaned up a bit….Do you want a drink or something? I probably have some juice in the fridge.”

“That’s ok, I’m not thirsty.” Kei deflects.

Kaneda hesitates for a moment; “Well, I guess I’ll get some for myself then…” He fumbles for a moment before plodding over to the kitchen. It’s a bit awkward. Kei can tell that he’s putting on an air of false cheeriness; despite his smile, there’s a tiredness in his step and a slump in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. She turns to face the wall adjacent to the couch, listening to the sounds of Kaneda messing about in the kitchen. He soon returns with a plastic glass in hand. He slowly sits down, leaving a good two feet of space between them. There is another beat of silence.

“So, uh…...how are things in junktown?”

“Things are going well. We finally have a water filtration system running, and the first thing everyone wants to do it take a shower.” 

Kaneda perks up at this. “Really? I’ll have to stop by soon. I probably smell like a pig right now!” 

Kei smirks. “You kind of do, to be honest.” Kaneda laughs sheepishly. 

“So, what else? Give me all the news.”

The conversation begins to flow easily, much to Kei’s relief. She tells him about the clean water in the bay, the fish, the declining number of ill people in the medical tents. She invites him to use the shower facilities and have a real meal at the settlement. They both agree to invite Kaisuke and Chiyoko, and the rest of their friends; It’s been awhile since they all were together. In turn, Kaneda talks about the parts he’s scavenged, to fix his bike. “I’ve actually been thinking of setting up a garage or something,” he explains, “Repairing people’s bikes, and maybe cars and stuff. That’s really the only thing I’m good at, you know?” 

“More than just that, I think,” Kei says with a grin. “I saw your solar panels outside the window. You’re really clever with machines, aren’t you?” She swears that Kaneda blushes a little bit at the complement. 

“You know, we could definitely use a good hand around camp,” She prompts. 

“....Yeah, I’ll try to stop by more often to help out, and stuff.”

The conversation lapses into silence. It’s not uncomfortable, like it had been before; there is no underlying tension, no awareness of something missing that remains unspoken.

Kei almost regrets disturbing the quiet moment, but some questions need to be asked. 

“Kaneda…..What’s that scratch on your face? And your hands….”

She can sense the change in atmosphere as Kaneda’s easy demeanor vanishes. 

“...I-It’s nothing.”

“Kaneda.”

“I said it’s nothing!”

Thier voices rise in volume and pitch. 

 

“Don’t lie to me, Kaneda. tell me the truth.”  
“Fucking--Don’t treat me like a child, Kei! I can take care of myself!”

Kaneda gets up from the couch, ready to storm off to a different part of the room, but Kei gets up just as quickly and grabs him by the wrist, jerking him in her direction to look her in the eye. 

“Then stop acting like one! Don’t tell me nothing happened, I’m not stupid--”  
“I never said you were stupid!”  
“Just tell me what happened to your face, Kaneda! Did you get into a fight or something?!”  
“Wha--no! I’ve been behaving myself, so just leave me alone!!”  
“Then just TELL me what happened!!!”

“FUCK OFF!!!”

Kaneda shouts so hard that his voice breaks. He’s breathing hard. His eyes are wild, frantic. 

Within a second, he seems to regret shouting. He turns away, so she can’t see his face. She loosens her grip on his wrist and he puts his face into his hands, letting out a shaky sigh. 

“I just…...just--leave it alone.” 

But she can’t back down now. 

“Kaneda.” She says firmly, but gently. “Please, tell me what happened?”

He lets himself fall back down onto the couch, the springs creaking under the shock of his weight. His tired eyes look down in his lap at his own bruised knuckles. Kei sits down beside him, closer this time. 

“I was just...throwing some stuff around. Punching walls. I fell.” He gestures towards the scratch in his temple, too apathetic to be embarrassed. “I just really needed to beat something up”

He rests his head against the back of the couch, his eyes trailing down the cracks in the ceiling. 

Kei waits. 

“I’m so tired…...I can’t sleep at night.”

Kei nods. “I can tell.” 

Kaneda lets out a snort, but it doesn’t sound that amused. “It’s that obvious, then.”

Kei shrugs. “Yes,” She states simply. 

Silence. Kaneda closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out again, slowly.

“...Kaneda, tell me about your nightmares.”

His eyes snap open. “You know what they’re about.”

“But I need you to tell me what HAPPENS, in these dreams. If they’re recurring, maybe they mean something.”

Kaneda says nothing. 

“Please Kaneda...I know it’s hard to think about, but I really want to help you through this. I know you don’t like talking about your feelings, but if you do, maybe it’ll help you get past them and move on.”

Kaneda is still for a moment, before raising his head from where it rested on the couch. He leans forwards and places his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together and gazing steadily at a stain in the grubby carpet. 

“.....it’s always the same.” He begins. “I’m in the olympic stadium, again. And Tetsuo is there, but mutated, you know?” 

Kei nods. 

“I always walk towards him, and he...changes back, to looking like a human again, sort of, but parts of him are still mutated, and he’s white all over....He always calls out to me to help him, like he’s suffering.”

“He…..it’s his face. Somehow, his face...I can’t hate him, I can’t. I want to help him, but I can’t….” Kaneda’s voice cracks with repressed emotion. He gasps, quietly, as if he’s repressing tears. 

It takes a few seconds, but he regains control. “He always turns back into a monster, and I can’t save him.”

Kei wraps an arm around Kaneda’s shoulders, and they sit quietly for a moment. 

Of course; Kei had forgotten. Tetsuo had been Kaneda’s friend. 

Kaneda had never given her the details of their friendship directly; she’d learned through snippets of information, and had asked Kaisuke at one point how they knew Tetsuo in the first place. “Tetsuo is--uh, was, Kaneda’s best friend for a long time. They knew each other since they were in 2nd grade,” Kai had elaborated to her. Kei had been surprised to learn this, after seeing how vehemently Kaneda seemed to loathe his former friend, shooting to kill every chance he had. She’d thought that they were acquaintances, or that Tetsuo was possibly the newest recruit to Kaneda’s gang. It never occurred to her that they were that close.

Her confusion must’ve shown on her face, because Kaisuke continued on. “To be honest, we were all shocked when Tetsuo changed. I mean, he was always sort of quiet, and sometimes he’d get annoyed with Kaneda for showing off a lot, you know? But we never really thought that he hated us all that much. He was pretty cool. I kinda looked up to him, you know? He was a really good rider, even if Kaneda usually took the lead.” 

Kai frowned. “It was weird though...when he changed, he looked different. Like a completely different person. On the surface it was him, and he had the same voice and everything! But there was something about his face, his eyes….” Kai made a face, a crazed scowl with his eyes bugged out. “He looked like an alien or something. He looked like a different person, like something had taken over his body and fucked with his brain or something. I could barely recognize him when I saw him. I guess in the end that made it easier to hate him for all the shit he’d done...If he’d looked like himself, I bet Kaneda woulda had a lot more trouble pulling the trigger on that laser rifle thing, you know? Even if the guy had killed tons of people.” Kai shrugged, toeing the ground with his boot. 

Kei thought for a moment. “Kaisuke, Tetsuo killed your friend right?”

Kaisuke tensed. “Yeah….Yamagata.” Kei regretted asking, knowing that the wound was still fresh, despite the months that had passed. But she pressed on. 

“Well--you seem to almost...well, you don’t seem to hate Tetsuo all that much, even though he did so many horrible things.”

Kai looked at her for a moment, as if searching her face for something, before looking down again. “Well...I dunno, I guess I don’t really connect the before-Tetsuo with the crazy Tetsuo. I think when he got those powers, it must’ve fucked with his mind or something, because OUR Tetsuo was crazy loyal. He never woulda joined the clowns, much less killed any of our crew.” He absentmindedly kicked at a pebble. 

“I mean...for as long as I’ve known Kaneda, he’s always had this thing for just GETTING people, you know? Like, not in an emotional way, really, but like--telling the cool guys from the assholes and the pussies. He could tell when someone was trustworthy,” Kai continued, “That’s why the Capsules were the tightest gang in the entire city, not just the district. Because no matter what, we’d always have each other’s backs.”

“So, like, even though Tetsuo became a fuckin’ lunatic, I can’t really hate him that much, you know? If Kaneda trusted him, then there must’ve been something good in him. I don’t think the REAL Tetsuo was fuckin’ loony, It was those powers that made him insane. I mean, yeah, we had to kill ‘im, cuz that was the only way to make sure he didn’t kill everyone. But we didn’t really hate ‘im.”

Kai’s expression turned wistful, then. “I guess it’s kinda like putting down a mad dog. Deep down, you know they don’t deserve it, but you gotta do it, before they hurt anyone else.” 

Kei had been surprised at Kaisuke’s thoughtfulness. Even though he wasn’t particularly educated, she could tell he had a good head on his shoulders. She had gained a new respect for him that day. 

She now recalled that conversation, while holding Kaneda in a sideways hug and wondering about the machinations of his thoughts. 

She’d never asked Kaneda about Tetsuo, outright. At first, she’d thought that Kaneda was angry about all the things he’d lost because of Tetsuo’s betrayal, the sort of distant rage that she had felt towards the politicians of Neo Tokyo for letting the city fall into decay. The type of hatred that results from having your life ruined. But after learning the truth of their friendship, she saw that the emotional wound was far deeper than she could truly comprehend. 

She realizes; Kaneda rarely shares his thoughts. He always performs actions with intent and purpose, but speaking his mind doesn’t come naturally to him at all. Perhaps, after transitioning from being an orphan to a delinquent, to the leader of a bosozoku gang, he’d become so accustomed to being a voiceless underdog in society that he chose to communicate his inner turmoil through the thrill of speed, the high of drugs, and the violence of Neo-Tokyo’s criminal underbelly. 

What she is asking of him…..to voice his thoughts, it must be difficult. 

She squeezes his shoulder.

“Kaneda, you can’t change what has happened...”

Kaneda stares silently at the space between his feet.

“...But, you can remember Tetsuo fondly. You were friends with him once. You don’t have remember him only by what he became--”

“--but I SHOULD hate him!” Kaneda interrupts suddenly, “He killed Yamagata, and so many other people! HE’s the one that’s fucking responsible for fucking DESTROYING Neo Tokyo in the first place, by fucking pulling Akira up from hundreds of feet under the FUCKING OLYMPIC STADIUM and unfreezing the little brat, just so he could become MORE powerful!! He’s the reason why I can’t fucking take a shower every morning, or wear clean clothes, or sleep in clean sheets, or get my bike properly fixed!! HE’S THE REASON I HAVE TO EAT FUCKING PROTIEN BARS FOR BREAKFAST!!!” Kaneda jerks himself up and grabs his glass of juice, chucking it at the wall above the tv screen, where it breaks with a satisfying crash, leaving a star-shaped wet splatter on the wall. Kaneda brings his hands to his face, clutching his head. 

He’s breathing hard again. “But…..But….I….I can’t…..”

“I can’t do it….I can’t hate him.”

He sits down again. The dam has been broken; now all Kei has to do is wait for the floodwaters. 

“ We were friends for so long. I trusted him. And he threw it all away and turned into a monster, like it all meant fucking nothing to him. He acted like--like I was oppressing him, like our entire friendship was just me bossing him around and showing off, humiliating him, and now he was getting payback, with his fucking new powers. And then he goes fucking crazy and joins the clowns and kills Yamagata, and then he fucking turned into a tyrant of his own puppet empire--I just...I don’t understand--”

His voice shakes. 

“He--he called out to me, in his last moments. Before he mutated for the last time. He called for me to help him. If he really hated me…. why….why would he do that?”

Kaneda is choking back sobs. Kei wraps her other arm around him, resting her cheek against the top of his head and rubbing his back in soothing circles. She stays quiet, and holds him for a bit.

He and Tetsuo had been best friends, since first meeting each other at the orphanage. They had become close as brothers, staying constant in each others’ lives even when their future was uncertain. 

Losing Tetsuo must’ve felt like losing a limb. Kaneda threw himself into the task of killing Tetsuo to block out the pain of his betrayal, but the pain returned in the form of nightmares and tainted memories of what they'd had, before it all went to shit. 

Kaneda’s breathing slows back to normal, as he heaves a great sigh. His head raises up and he stares blankly at the wall as he speaks.

“Kei….before you came and saved me, in that vortex….I saw all of Tetsuo’s memories. I saw his memories of us, when we were kids...when we first met.”

“How did you meet?”

Kaneda laughs, with no real joy. “He was a new kid at the orphanage. The older kids had beat him up and taken his action toy or something, so I got it back for him. At first he was scared of me, cuz he thought I was gonna beat him up like the other guys did,” Kaneda smiles faintly, wistful. 

Kei can’t help the small smile that graces her face, thinking of a younger scrappy Kaneda with the same chivalrous, well-meaning intentions as his older counterpart. 

Kaneda sighs again. “We….we were basically best friends from then. We did everything together.”

His brow furrows. “But, when I was in the vortex….that little esper girl, Kiyoko, she was there, and she told me i was seeing all of Tetsuo’s repressed memories.”

He suddenly turns to face Kei, looking her in the eyes, searching for answers. “I don’t understand...was Tetsuo--did something fuck with his mind? Is that why he went crazy? Did his powers--” He stops for a moment, composing himself. 

“That kid, Akira…..he was completely emotionless. He wasn’t a normal kid at all, his entire personality was swept away. Did the same thing happen to Tetsuo? His memories, his personality, warped? To make him do...what he did?” His eyes are pleading, but Kei doesn’t know how to respond. Even having experienced psychic powers firsthand though being a medium, she couldn’t completely explain Tetsuo’s megalomania. 

Kaneda slumps, once again turning to face the wall. “Did I….was it my fault? That he became so violent?”

Kei thinks for a moment. 

She remembers being a medium for the espers; the feeling of her consciousness brushing against another. Takashi, Masaru, Kiyoko...their minds had been frozen in a perpetual childlike state, containing wisdom and power beyond comprehension, but processing that information through the eyes of a child, despite the 40 years that had passed since the experiments that had caused the original explosion in Tokyo. Lady Miyako’s mind had been different; she bore the invisible scars of the past decades on her mind, her maturity allowing her to control her powers as the esper children couldn’t.

She remembers the few instances when she’d been close enough to Tetsuo for him to sink his eyes into her own and pierce through her mind, for a split second; the raging storm inside his head, an open conduit of pure energy, somehow directed by a calculating force. It was as if the power he’d obtained had taken the shape of his conscious and warped, stretched it, to accommodate his power. His anger, his pain, his desire for revenge against all his oppressors; it was all amplified, blocking out all other emotions. 

In that split second, she could only sense the faintest white noise of who he had been before, repressed and hidden in some secret place within his mind. Unleashing him from the burdens of morality, allowing his power to flow freely through his body.

The difference between Tetsuo and the other espers, she realizes, is that the espers were all children, when their abilities manifested. They were innocent children, simply doing what they were told, and for that, they were given a dangerous power that stripped them of their autonomy and their adulthood, rendering them the wards of a corrupt government. 

Tetsuo was a drugged up, violent, and emotionally repressed orphan. The powers he acquired only served to distort and magnify his teenage insecurities. But even so, he’d never asked for the fate he was given. 

“Kaneda….” Kei begins. “I...can’t say anything with certainty, because there is so little we truly understand about the powers of Akira and Tetsuo…” 

Kaneda is silent, waiting.

“Tetsuo...when he gained his psychic powers, it was because he’d crashed into Takashi on the highway, right? He’d come into contact with another esper.” There is a flash of recognition in Kaneda’s eyes. 

“Yeah, I remember that. The kid was just standing in the road and Tetsuo swerved to avoid him, and his bike went up in flames…that’s how he got his powers? Just by getting close to Takashi?”

“Yes.” Kei nods. “That was the trigger. Thier close proximity somehow allowed Takashi’s psionic powers to awaken Tetsuo’s own.”

She pauses. “These powers, this energy...it’s like an electric current. It flows from an incredibly vast pool, somewhere in our universe, and scientists somehow found a way to connect the human mind to that flow, and allow for the espers to control that energy.”

“These scientists decided to operate only on child subjects, because children’s minds are more….malleable, in a sense. They could be conditioned to control their powers, and were easier for the scientists to control. If the subjects had been adults, they might’ve caused immense destruction, like Akira or Tetsuo.”

Kaneda understands, suddenly. “So, it’s like….the espers had resistors, to control the flow of energy into their minds….”

“Exactly. But even then, they couldn’t completely control the flow, and took pills that helped to suppress it further, so it wouldn’t destroy them.”

“That capsule,” Kaneda states. 

Kei nods. 

“This energy...it’s like electricity in a circuit. Once it is awakened, it will relentlessly attempt to release itself. That’s why Akira unleashed the first explosion in old Tokyo--somehow, that energy flew out of control, and swept through his mind, destroying every aspect of his personality, with the one goal of releasing itself, in the form of an incredible destructive force…  
But...Akira himself survived the explosion. His mental connection with the espers acted like a capacitor for his energy, containing that power until Takashi and Tetsuo made contact. Tetsuo then became heir to these powers, and without the conditioning that the other espers had, he only had drugs to help suppress the flow of energy. It didn’t erase his personality, because of his age, and the drugs in his system, but his mind most likely became warped in response to this new energy flow”

She is silent for a moment, allowing for Kaneda to process the information.

“This energy...it’s in all of us, and it’s what makes us want to build, and evolve, to grow…but in small amounts. In larger amounts, it becomes destructive, as we strive for power and step over others. Tetsuo had become a conduit for a massive amount of energy, and it warped his personality, exacerbating his negative emotions and making him more destructive. It repressed his positive memories and attributes, forcing his hand. The more warped he became, the more he abused his powers, and more power grew within his mind until it expanded beyond the limits of his body”

Kei takes a deep breath. The room is still and quiet. 

“Kaneda…..Tetsuo’s mind wasn’t his own, up until he completely lost control of his powers. In his last moments, when he reached out to you….that was the real Tetsuo.”

She looks at Kaneda. He’s stopped trying to repress his tears, and instead weeps silently, looking down at his hands that rest in his lap. 

She hugs him again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some sad Kaneda, wallowing in misery like he deserves. Also, some incredibly cheesy flashbacks. (This might be the last chapter for a while, since I don't have the next chapter completed yet.)
> 
> Kei: "That's what you get for being such a dope."

Kaneda, like the gentleman he isn’t, walks her down the stairs to the front door, and watches her drive off on her little electric scooter, after promising to drop by Junktown for dinner sometime. After, he walks back upstairs to the couch and lies down, exhausted.

 

He thinks about this morning, after talking and smoking with Kaisuke. He’d gone off to an uninhabited part of the city, where abandoned, overturned cars lay in the streets. The buildings there were mostly destroyed, ready to fall apart at any moment; closest to ground zero, they were the only structures still (barely) standing, before the landscape devolved completely into rubble.

 

He’d meant to travel in the opposite direction, to scavenge for parts in more intact parts of the city,  but something compelled him to instead to go move towards the center of the destruction. He rode his bike as far as he could go, until the asphalt ended abruptly in the middle of the street, interrupting his journey with a giant crevice split through the concrete, 4 feet wide and at least 8 feet deep. From that point forward, the road was covered in too much debris  to navigate on his bike.

 

So he dismounted, locked his bike, and walked. There was nobody around to nab it, people are too afraid to venture into this part of the city. He managed to leap across the crack, and started weaving his way in and out of the rubble. Unthinking, he weaved in and out between pieces of buildings, until he found himself in a clearing, dead grass under his feet, the trees uprooted and overturned. Debris and garbage lay everywhere.The remains of a small park; a courtyard, really, surrounded on three sides by crumbling walls.

 

A memory suddenly assaults his mind.

 

_A summer evening, what seems like forever ago, when in reality, it’s only been a couple years. Dicking around in a public park, just the two of them; everyone else had gone home, but they had nowhere to go (that they’d be particularly welcome, anyway). They’d stopped by a drugstore to lift some soda and chips, ice-cold to ward off the relentless heat. The fuzzy feeling from the pills was dying down. They had no distractions besides each other and the distant rumbling of highway traffic. Somehow, the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It was 2 in the morning, and the lamps were dimmed. They’d taken off their jackets long ago, probably leaving them at the Harukiya, to blaze through the night in only their undershirts._

_Shoulder to shoulder, they tromp through the park, not caring about the noise they are making. Tetsuo shoves Kaneda over, causing Kaneda to stumble and laugh, and Kaneda shoves back, until they are pressed together side by side in some childish match of strength and wills, seeing who will relent first and move over to the side of the pathway._

_Suddenly, Tetsuo hip checks him unexpectedly and he stumbles again, both of them guffawing. Kaneda’s dimly aware that he should feel hungover by now, the beer and pills wearing off from earlier in the night, but he only feels pleasantly buzzed. “Tetsuo, you cunt.”_

_“Fuck you, asshole.” It’s all stupid banter. Tetsuo smiles as he says it._

_“Shithead.”_

_“Dickwad.”_

_They find a flat grassy spot, and Kaneda plops down, Tetsuo dropping down to sit beside him as he struggles to open his bag of chips. He’s still a little buzzed, and keeps trying to rip the corner off the bag until Tetsuo, equally buzzed, grabs it out of his hands and tears it open with his teeth. A few chips fall to the ground, and Kaneda grabs one and pops it in his mouth. “Thanks, Titsuo,” he says, chewing with his mouth open._

_“Shut the fuck up, Kanedouche.” Tetsuo digs into the bag, grabbing a handful and dropping them in Kaneda’s lap. Kaneda is too comfortable to care._

_It’s been awhile since he’s been this relaxed. For a long time, he’d been spending nearly every night surrounded by his gang, watching the streetlights blur into lines on their bikes while they tracked down the Clowns or the Monkeys or some other fucking circus troop that decided to dance around on their turf._

_It occurs to him that, while he enjoys the violent chases and drugged up nights, sometimes he would just rather be somewhere else._

_Not right now though. He doesn’t need to be on edge when he’s with Tetsuo; they can just hang out, with no action, and everything is fine. It's not something he can do with any of his other friends._

_He supposes that’s why Tetsuo is his best friend. The sudden swell of affection in his chest is embarrassingly overwhelming; he wants to hug Tetsuo right now, but god, no._

_They don’t do that sort of thing._

_They are lying down on the grass, covered in chip crumbs and looking up at a half moon shining bright in the sky._

_“Y’know,” Tetsuo says, out of the blue. “We can’t see any stars here.”_

_Kaneda turns his head to look at Tetsuo, whose eyes are fixed on the moon. “Yeah….what about it?”_

_“I hear when you go to the country, far away from the lights of the city, you can see millions of stars…..” Tetsuo reaches up, as if he’s going to grab the moon and hold it in his closed fist._

_“We should go sometime. Go camping or something, and see what they’re like.”_

_“The stars?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Kaneda’s heart swells. It’s small, but nonetheless, he knows what Tetsuo is trying to say._

__  
  
  


A sudden flapping and the calls of crows had snapped him out of the memory. Two birds circled above him, before flying off in a new direction, while he remained anchored to the ground.

 

God, he hates it here. He hates this city; he always hated it. But he’s a part of it. He can’t get out, because he’s intrinsically bound to the broken concrete.

 

He picked up a tin can, and threw it at the nearest wall with a yell. He kept doing it, picking up debris and throwing it, wrecking the entire courtyard, screaming himself hoarse, until there was nothing left to throw and he was just leaning on the wall, head in his hands, screaming out his frustrations.

 

An ominous rumble then filled the air. The ground shook beneath him. He remembered why people don’t come here anymore.

He looked up to see a giant slab of concrete barrelling down towards him. In that moment, a single thought pervaded his mind.

 

So this is it. That’s ok, I guess.

  
  


Suddenly, before the next thought could pass through his mind, he had felt a hand wrap around his wrist, and suddenly he flew towards the opposite side of the courtyard, hitting the ground hard, knocking the wind out of him.

 

He looked up. His chest felt like it was about to explode, his heart was beating so fast. He scanned left and right, but nobody was there.

 

And yet, he still could feel the imprint of a hand on his wrist. The fading sense of a familiar presence.

  
  
  


Back on the couch, Kaneda contemplates this.

 

It isn’t the first time he’s felt it--felt him. Hovering in his peripheral vision like the ghosts of light that dance behind his eyelids. The sense of him being there, like he always was, until he was suddenly torn away in a twisted machination of fate.  

 

Months ago, before he had….died, vanished, vaporized….left, Kaneda had filled up the gaping hole he left behind, with anger, hatred, resentment, blocking out all other feelings and memories. He distracted himself by spending nearly every moment with Kei, relentlessly pursuing her in an effort to replace his former friend in life.

 

It wasn’t until after, that the wound began to tear itself open again. Memories, emotions surfaced, and reminded him of what he has lost.

 

And sometimes….when he remembers, when he’s riding his bike too fast down the partially collapsed highways without a helmet on, when he’s alone for too long and eating himself from the inside….there is the feeling of Tetsuo being there. Like a comforting weight. Except that he isn’t there, and Kaneda must be hallucinating or something.

 

It’s as if, when Tetsuo’s repressed memories were released--Kaneda’s were, as well. And now, they follow him like a ghost.

 

He wonders if he’s going insane.

 

He gets up and gets the first aid kit.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyooo!  
> I got a bit hung up on this part, because it's quite a change in mood from the last one, and i stopped writing halfway through it only to pick back up again like two weeks later. Hope it isn't super obvious!  
> Anyway: Kei for mayor!!!!!

A few days later, he stops by Junktown. Kei greets him with open arms; he takes the first proper shower he’s had in almost a year, and gets a chance to wash his clothes. They give him a pair of blue jeans and a white undershirt to wear while his clothes dry, and he heads to the canteen, where Kei is waiting, with two steaming bowls of ramen in front of her. It smells amazing, and his mouth waters. Here, surrounded by people, clean, with new clothes, he feels a little more alive than he did before.

 

“Thanks for grabbing some for me.”

 

She smiles. “Better dig in, before it cools down!”

 

They eat in relative silence, but the canteen is full of noise; raucous laughter from the next table, a group of both Japanese and American men playing an especially intense game of poker, betting literal potato chips instead of poker chips (another rare commodity). It’s quite a scene; Kaneda watches them out of the corner of his eye while he slurps up noodles.

 

They don’t need to talk, and that's ok. They just take in the atmosphere, and enjoy the companionship of sharing a meal.

 

Kei finishes her noodles, lifting the bowl to her mouth and drinking the rest of the broth before sliding the bowl to the side and pulling two tangerines out of her pocket. Kaneda’s eyes light up. Kei is just full of surprises today.

 

“I hope one of those is for me!” He says, only half jokingly--the other half is somewhat pleading.

 

Most of the food they are able to eat is dried, or preserved, rations given to them by the UN. Getting fresh fruit took much longer; for a while people were surviving off of vitamin pills and HOOAH! bars, until they could get other types of food into the city. But even then, most of the food shipped in was processed in some way.

 

(Hooah! bars are a type of American ration bar developed during WW2. Look em up)

 

Kei laughs heartily. “Never thought I’d see you get excited over a piece of fruit!” she exclaims, then tosses one across the table to him. She begins to peel her own.

 

Kaneda shrugs and does the same. “Me neither, but I guess that’s just the world we’re living in, now.”

 

He gets off the last bit of peel and pops a segment into his mouth. It’s juicy, sweet and perfect. For a moment, nothing is wrong in the world.

 

“You look a little better than the last time I saw you.”

 

Kaneda shrugs. The bruises on his hands are less colorful now, fading into a dull yellow. And the cut on his temple is less red and sore,and is mostly scabbed over. In the past few days he’s been able to rest in a dreamless sleep, devoid of nightmares.”Yeah, I’ve been sleeping better lately.”

 

“That’s good.” Kei says with a reluctant smile. She pauses, as they finish the tangerines. “Want to take a walk around the settlement?”

 

Kaneda nods. “Sure.”

 

Conversation is a bit awkward. Kaneda is mentally worn out and Kei is all too aware of it, though she’s glad that he’s been getting more rest. Obviously, a few nights sleep isn’t going to solve all his problems.

 

But she doesn’t want to ask more questions. Kei managed to unlock in Kaneda some tide of repressed anger and hurt that had left them both reeling in its wake; now, Kaneda needs to face his emotions on his own. She struggles with this fact, conflicting with her desire to help; but in the end, there is little she can do besides be his friend.

 

They walk around the settlement. People see Kaneda and wave hello, asking where he’s been. Kaneda is surprised to realize how many people remembered him, after he’d practically vanished from the camp for a month.

 

“Hey, Kaneda. Let me show you something.” Kei says, tugging at his sleeve for him to follow her. They wind in between the rickety tents and temporary shelters, until they exit the courtyard that comprises the center of the settlement. They walk through the shabby, neglected lobby of the apartment buildings that surround the settlement, making their way up a long flight of stairs to reach the top of the building. The sounds of the settlement’s inhabitants leak through the walls, the pervading humanity making it’s presence known in the form of distance sounds of laughter and conversation, mimicking the city’s original ambient noise. It’s almost comforting; before, the city was full of the sounds of motors and generators, the buzz of electricity everywhere, making itself known in the hissing of streetlights and the constant rumble of bikes and cars. People learned to speak loudly to be heard over the constant din, unaware of the continuous sound that pervaded their lives.

 

In the settlement, the noise is different. More organic, human. There are footsteps instead of motors, laughter instead of screeching brakes and sirens. It’s a different type of noise that reminds Kaneda of times way back in his childhood, when the caretakers at the orphanage would take the kids out of the city on short trips to more remote areas of Japan, where people still had gas-powered cars, and occasionally walked places instead of driving.

 

In Neo Tokyo, there had been so many people that nobody knew; the city was overflowing with people who had been forgotten by their families and friends, who clung to the edge of existence by a thread. But in the countryside, everyone knew their neighbor. There was a comfortable familiarity and trust that everyone had with one another. The only times that Kaneda had ever felt self-pity for being an orphan was when he visited those small towns, and seen the happy lives of the families who lived there.

 

Now, in a rickety old apartment building, he once again feels that bittersweet emotion weighing on his chest.

 

As they near the top, the noise fades away, and they reach the top of the staircase, out of breath from climbing several flights of stairs. Kei clutches her knees, bent over, catching her breath again before straightening out and opening the door to the rooftop.

 

“Take a look at this, Kaneda!”

 

Kaneda squints at the blinding beam of sunlight that pierces through the darkness of the hall, and steps outside onto the roof.

 

There are plants everywhere, sprouting out of soil that has been packed into plastic crates and old tires. Saplings have been planted around the edges of the roof, their leaves rustling in the wind.

The garden is thriving like nothing Kaneda has ever seen in his life.

Kei grins at Kaneda’s awestruck expression. “This isn’t the only one. All the other buildings have rooftop gardens too.” She takes ahold of his hand, guiding him through the garden. He realizes that most of what is growing here is vegetables; cabbage, radishes, squash. The trees are bearing fruit too, most of them apple trees. Most of the crops are unripe, not ready to be picked yet. “Is this…did you start this?” He asks, as he looks around wide-eyed.

 

“Yep!” She grins. “We got this farm started soon after we discovered this area. It was originally a rooftop garden, but we replaced the soil and planted vegetables instead. The other apartment buildings are like this too.” She gestures to the surrounding greenery. “In fact, there are several residential buildings that survived the blast, that have rooftop gardens. If we play our cards right, we can convert all of them into farms and have enough food to feed the settlement, until we get steady supplies of food from the outside.”

 

Kei looks out into the garden, wistful. “That’s what I’ve been telling people, anyway. I don’t know if it’s really a realistic goal.” She kneels, to inspect a leaf on one of the plants, partially eaten through by aphids. “It’s still a tiny farm, and there are so many people that need to be fed…...I don’t know if this will even make a difference, even if the harvest is good. And I can’t even guarantee that.”

 

She stands up. “But I have to be optimistic. Even if it’s a pointless endeavor, it gives people hope, or at the very least something to do while we wait for more assistance to arrive.”

 

Kaneda turns and looks out on the expanse of the rooftop. From here, he can see over the garden, to the silhouette of the wrecked city. The skyline of downtown has been completely destroyed, skyscrapers reduced to only the first five floors, like tree stumps where there was once a forest.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people had died in that first explosion, he remembers. And soon after, thousands more had evacuated the city until the only ones left were those in Miyako’s cult, and the Great Akira Empire, both groups composed of desperate survivors that hadn’t been able to make it out of the city before all the exits were cut off. Kaneda hadn’t been around to witness this, floating in some void ‘beyond this world’ until the moment of his inevitable return through a rift in time; he remembers Kei explaining this to him, when he’d gawked at the streets that, for the first time in his life, had been empty.

 

In comparison to Neo Tokyo’s original booming population, the “Great Tokyo Empire” is tiny. But, Kaneda supposes, it’s a start.

 

Kaneda looks at Kei, who had been staring at the same skyline as himself. He wonders what is going on in her head.

 

“You know, Kei….” he begins. “You’re a good leader.” Kei smiles, averting her eyes humbly, and lets out a small laugh. “Well, I do try my best…”

 

“No--well, I mean, you’re a really, REALLY good leader. You could probably be like, the mayor of the city or something, or the governor, or whatever. You could probably get elected or something.

 

Kei gives him a look, and then bursts out laughing. “What? ME? A mayor?!” She’s guffawing, until tears are leaking out the corners of her eyes, and she’s holding her sides. “You really think so?!”

 

Kaneda shrugs, a bit bewildered at her reaction. “Yeah. Everyone likes you, and listens to you. You’re smart and you know what you’re doing, and you care about more than just yourself. After all the bullshit that the old fat cats put this city through, I’m pretty sure everyone’s looking for a real leader, instead of some money-hoarding fatass.” Kei has another giggle at his accurate terminology. But, the more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense.

 

She had originally become part of the resistance because she was sick of seeing her friends and family suffer at the hands of a corrupt government, controlled by the self-interests of rich capitalists. She wanted to expose the government for what it was, to uncover it’s dark secrets and  understand the meaning of “AKIRA”. She was sick of secrets and lies.

 

Now, there is no reason for her to continue fighting, as there is no government to resist. But she still feels the urge to continue forward, to make change, and progress.

 

Kaneda is right. She’s popular around the settlement, and people often come to her to ask for her approval.

  
“I’ll think about it.” She says. But as soon as she says it, she makes up her mind. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOOORE ANGSTTTTTT AHOOOOOOY  
> I stg i will squeeze every last drop of angst out of Kaneda by the time this fanfic is through. So, be prepared!

He sticks around for another couple hours, wandering around by himself while Kei attends to a few minor duties. Eventually he runs into Kai, and they catch up on the latest events, while chain smoking the precious few cigarettes that Kai has left in the single box he has to his name. Talking to Kai makes Kaneda realize just how isolated he’d been in the past few weeks; they’d barely talked at all, and the last time they saw each other they’d just smoked silently for five minutes before Kaneda had sped off, not wanting to blow off steam one of his few remaining friends in this beaten-down city. When Kei finds them both, they are leaning against a wall and furtively crushing their cigarette butts under their boots, pretending as if they didn’t absolutely reek of their little indulgence. “Heyyyy, Kei! What's up?” Kai asks in an exaggerated friendly manner. Kei rolls her eyes. “I’m just fine, Kai, but neither of YOU are going to be if you keep smoking behind my back like this.” Kai scratches the back of his neck. “Aw Kei can’t you allow us guys a little treat now and then?” Kei pinches his cheek, hard. “NO.” Kaneda lets out a laugh at her bluntness.   
Suddenly, Kai excitedly asks; “Speaking of treats, do either of you have any plans for this evening?” 

Kaneda and Kei both look at each other for a moment, wondering if there was an implication Kai was trying to make. “Uh, no?” “No, Why?

A sly grin spreads over Kai’s face. “Well, I’ve been hanging out with these American soldiers, and they managed to get some beer shipped in ... we were planning to have a little party, you know? We’ve all been working pretty hard, it’s time to loosen up a bit. “ Kai winks. 

Kaneda perks up at the mention of beer. God, it’s been a looong time.   
“I’d love to!” “Ah, I think I’ll pass on this one…” Kei and Kaneda say simultaneously, before Kaneda looks at Kei, questioningly. Kei shrugs, apologetic. “I don’t think that’s really my scene. But you guys should go have fun!” She smiles, encouraging. It’s obvious that Kai is also reaching out to Kaneda, trying to get him back to his old self again. Even though Kei isn’t comfortable with Kaneda’s past substance abuse, she’s willing to make an exception, if only to let him remind himself that he can still be the same carefree person he was before, even without a gang and a cause to rebel against. 

Kai shrugs. “Alright then. More for the rest of us! right?” He grins, elbowing Kaneda in the side. “Hell yeah!” Kaneda replies. Kei laughs. 

~~~

Kaneda and Kai went to that party. Well, not so much of a ‘party’--there are usually girls at one of those--but more of a ‘let’s-get-wasted-and-play-games-or-something’ party. There was actually more beer shipped in than they thought there was; 6 kegs of the stuff, for about 11 people, 7 of which being the American soldiers who were a good 2 feet taller than either Kaneda or Kai. Said soldiers could, as Kaneda learned that night, drink more than Kaneda and Kai combined, and even then, there was still a few kegs left unopened. They drank and swapped weird funny stories, and eventually somebody pulled out a deck of cards and they began to play a weird game of poker that somehow devolved into a fucking weird mix of blackjack and go fish. Eventually the game fell apart entirely. Half the guys were lying on the ground snoring, collapsed in the spots where they’d been sitting in a circle with the cards haphazardly tossed into the middle. Kaneda was leaning shoulder to shoulder with the guy next to him, a Japanese-American soldier who said his name was Saito or something. Kaneda was very, very drunk, even if he didn’t realize it. 

Suddenly, considerably-less-drunk Saito got up from the floor, leaving Kaneda to lose his balance. “Fuck man, you’re leaving??” Kaneda complained, though he didn’t know why he even cared. He didn’t even know Saito before that night, and they’d barely talked. “Already??”

“Uh, yeah?” Saito gave him a weird look. “I have a shift in the morning. I can’t stay all night.”

 

“Urgh…” Kaneda let himself fall onto his back, flinging an arm over his eyes. “Yeah, whatever…” he slurred. “Get outta here….you’re just another damn backstabber……” Kaneda was vaguely aware that he was talking a load of bullshit, but the alcohol had caused the words to bypass any logical part of his brain and travel straight to his mouth. “I don’ need you anyway--I don’ need anyone….” 

Saito, being the older, wiser person, decided to ignore the gibberish from the wasted kid on the floor, and just leave. He didn’t really know why his buddies wanted to invite a couple minors to get drunk with them, but hey. After all that went down in this city, he supposes they all could use a drink, regardless of age. 

~~~

Kaneda wakes up on the floor a couple hours later. His head is pounding and his mouth is dry and fuzzy, like his tongue had turned into a sock or something. Without saying a word, he gets up, stumbling around to retrieve his jacket and keys before heading outside again into the night. 

Nobody is awake, and Junktown is utterly quiet, save for the hissing of the electric lamps that light the camp at night. He finds the water fountain at the center of camp and takes a few long drinks before making his way towards the edge of the encampment to retrieve his bike. 

He plops into the seat, rubbing his palms up from his cheeks to his forehead and into his hair, leaning his head back until his head is completely on the headrest, and he is facing the sky.

It is a clear night. The stars are the most brilliant he’s ever seen them. They cluster together in a giant stream, an incredible celestial mass that he had only seen in pictures and photographs; but never with his own eyes. 

In his still-kinda-drunk state, he allows himself to think about Tetsuo, without the constant looming feeling of anger and guilt looming over him. Instead, he tries to block out all emotions. A clean slate. 

He thinks about when they were kids. Tetsuo had been so shy of the other kids, afraid to get hurt again. Kaneda remembers seeing him in the empty playground, wiping tears from his eyes and running his battered hands underneath the water fountain. 

Kaneda wasn’t an empathetic child. But he saw himself in Tetsuo. He saw them both, fighting against the bigger kids from the projects. Moving forward to fight against the world. 

He remembers going into middle school, and becoming more and more of a delinquent. Dragging Tetsuo everywhere with him, as they shoplifted from convenience stores and pickpocketed oblivious tourists in the shopping district. Tetsuo had always been more hesitant, the voice of reason. Kaneda, on the other hand, always worked on impulse. They were a good team together. 

He remembers when he’d first stolen a motorbike. Someone had just left it on the sidewalk, key still in the ignition, and Kaneda fell in love at first glance. He’d given Tetsuo this look, and suddenly Kaneda was in the seat, revving the engine experimentally, while Tetsuo stood at the side, completely at a loss. 

Suddenly, the owner exited the convenience store where he had been making a quick grocery run, and upon seeing Kaneda fooling around, let out a yell. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Kaneda had suddenly, in a spark in inspiration, grabbed Tetsuo’s wrist and flung him into the seat of the bike, behind him. “HOLD ON!” He shouted, popping up the kickstand and revving up completely, giving Tetsuo only a few seconds to wrap his arms tight around his waist before he sped off down the street with his new obsession. 

Nothing in his life, in his 14 years, had been more thrilling than that moment. Faster than he’d ever gone before, wind in his face, his best friend clinging to him and yelling for him to slow down like their lives depended on it. 

He’d spent the next couple years of his life chasing that high. With speed, drugs, and violence. 

Then, in the space of one motorcycle accident, His friend had been changed. Maybe it was because of Tetsuo’s repressed emotions; or maybe he just went crazy. Maybe Kaneda’s endless search for that same high feeling--of complete control, but also of no control at all--had torn away at their friendship, planting some seed of darkness in Tetsuo’s mind, that took root and unleashed itself when he inherited his powers. Maybe, Kaneda had been so absorbed in his own high that he had destroyed, from the inside, the one person he’d wanted to share it with. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Kaneda is sick of uncertainty. 

 

Kaneda rides down the empty highway, back to his little apartment, his little routine. The sun is just barely rising, the sky turning a faint pink in the dawning light. 

He accelerates. He keeps speeding up, just because he can. Debris and overturned cars blur as he passes by. His thoughts blur too. Right now, he doesn’t want to think. He just wants the singular, focused thrill of speed.   
He feels the pressure of two arms wrapped too tight around his waist. 

“KANEDA!! SLOW DOWN!”

Kaneda suddenly hits the brakes, his bike swerving as he skids to a stop, and sees that the highway ends here. 

There is nothing but air. He looks over the edge, where the ground is littered with the remnants of the collapsed highway. Wordlessly, he steps off his bike. tripping and falling to his knees. He wraps his arms around himself, where the pressure of someone else’s hands had been. The familiar voice echoes in his head. His heart is pounding wildly in his chest. He tries to control his breathing.

 

“Why? Why does this keep happening? Why won’t you leave me alone?” He says to nobody. There is no answer. Just the light of dawn hitting his face as the sun rises.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Kaisuke makes his radio debut, and Kaneda has more angst ridden paranormal experiences.  
> Enjoy!!!
> 
> (P.S. Follow Kaisuke's blog at http://gter410am.tumblr.com/ )

He finds a different route home and rides the rest of the way in a daze. As soon as he gets through the front door, he strips off his jacket and makes a beeline for the couch and flops over, dropping off into a blessedly dreamless sleep, still wearing his boots and gloves. He doesn’t wake up again until 8 hours later, in the early afternoon, when his stomach starts growling uncontrollably and he gets up to find another one of those godforsaken protein bars. He reminds himself to pick up some real food the next time he visits junktown.

 

He lounges around the apartment for a couple hours, distracting himself by fiddling with the generator, using scavenged circuitry and parts to improve its energy output. While he works, his mind goes blank, and the wires and solder in his hands become hyperfocused, the surrounding world becoming blurry and fuzzy in his peripheral vision. He spends at least an hour sitting crosslegged on the floor, almost completely still except for the movements of his hands and the flickering of his eyes as they point and assess his work.

 

He stops when a bright light assails his eyes. The sun is setting, and light from the kitchen window beams all the way through the kitchen and across the apartment to where he is sitting, directly on his face. The entire room is lit gold. He rises to his knees, stiff from sitting in one position for so long.

 

He looks out the window. The afternoon light is intense and the wind is still, like the ravaged city is waiting for something. Eerily, there is barely a sound to be heard.

 

The color of the light, reflecting off the worn concrete below, triggers a sense memory of an old playground, chalk dust on his hands and knees. Pictures of tokyo tower and evil robots encroaching upon a peaceful winding road, lined with houses and flowers.

 

He is suddenly assaulted with the desire to go visit his old gradeschool. In the back of his mind, there lies a deep certainty that it must still be there, still standing, exactly the way it was 10 years ago, forever captured in his childhood memories like a photograph.

 

In seconds, he is pulling on his baggy jacket and clomping down the stairs back to his bike. Neo Tokyo may be a smouldering wreckage now, but Kaneda’s sense of direction hasn’t failed him yet. The school was located in the southeastern side of the city, farthest away from ground zero. It may still be standing, now, if he can just remember exactly where it is.

 

Kaneda mounts his bike, and swings his over the dashboard to the handlebars only for his fingers to brush against the long-neglected buttons to the radio system. The loud crackle of static startles him so bad he almost falls off his bike, before he rights himself. Out of curiosity, he experimentally twists the dial, searching for any active stations.

 

Most of it is static, with a few emergency broadcasts interspersed throughout. He is about to give up and turn it off when a familiar voice rings out of his speakers in a clear tone, caught mid-sentence.

 

“-ink it’s on air now….oh! Yeah it’s on!”

 

“Well, this is your first broadcast, so introduce yourself!”

 

“But Kei-It’s not like anyone’s listening!”

 

“Exactly! Nobody is gonna hear you if you screw up or say something embarrassing, so you might as well practice your radio voice while you still can!”

 

A sigh echoes through the speaker, accompanied by the slight crackle of static. “Aaaagh , ok. Here goes…..This is, uh, 410 Great Tokyo Empire Radio! I’m Kaisuke, and I’ll, um, be running this station from now on.”

 

“Wow Kai, you’re so awkward-” “SHHHHH!!”

 

Kaneda leaves the radio playing as he starts up the motor and drives off.

 

“Well, to anyone out there who might be listening…..hi! We just got this little station set up in building 5 of Junktown, and we’re gonna be broadcasting news and announcements everyday. We’ll also play music too, since we finally have a computer set up now…..but it’s all American rock CDs I got from Sergeant Stevens, since we don’t have any internet. He says it’s good stuff though, so I guess we just have to not look the gift horse in the mouth, haha!”

 

“Aaaaaanyway, now that I’ve got all those introductions out of the way, we can listen to some music now……..”  There is the sound of plastic cases clacking together. “Hmmmmm……? Ah. Here’s one…..The Best of Radiohead? Weird name for a band, but hey, enjoy!”

 

Acoustic guitar plays over the speakers, accompanied by a crooning male voice. He remembers hearing this song, maybe once or twice before. It has to be at least 40 years old by now….Stevens has ancient taste in music, apparently.

 

It’s the sort of melancholy sounding stuff Kaneda never would’ve listened to before, but it’s been a long time since he even got the opportunity to listen to any music at all. In some weird way, even though he can’t really understand the english lyrics, he feels as if this is the perfect music for the moment. The song continues on as he winds through the streets, slowly, so he doesn’t drown out the radio with the noise of the motor.

 

He drives for about thirty minutes. The CD Kaisuke put on is still playing, on it’s 6th or 7th track when Kaneda stops his bike and turns the radio off. He puts the kickstand down and dismounts, facing the old, rickety building.

 

Somehow, it looks almost the same. The windows are broken, and the grass on the lawn is overgrown with weeds, and the play structures were taken down long ago, with only a solitary swingset remaining; but the outside of the building is the same dingy beige color it always was, and the building itself is mostly intact.

 

He slowly approaches the entrance.

 

There are the same shelves where they would place their shoes. The same tiles on the floor, the same wallpaper. This school was in a poor area, so they could never really afford to replace anything. It’s mostly empty, save for a book or two on the top of a shelf, and a pair of shoes lying forgotten.

 

He remembers one time, when he and Tetsuo had put the odd-smelling soap from the restroom in one of their classmate’s shoes, one of the kids who had beaten up Tetsuo when he’d first gotten there. The teacher had never figured out who had done it; it was one of their tamer pranks.

 

More memories.

 

He makes his way into the hall. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, so much so that when he sets his foot down, a cloud of it disperses into the air. He steps into the classroom that was his fifth grade homeroom. The desks are still there, jumbled up in the sides of the room, some of them overturned. In the clear area in the middle of the room, there are a few abandoned syringes, as if some junkie had come here to get high one last time before going to die, or to leave the city, or wherever the poor bastard went. Something in Kaneda jerks and twists; one of the few places where his memory is untainted by some fucked up event, and some asshole has to soil it with their addictions.

 

It’s hypocritical. Kaneda never admitted it until now, but even as he had hated the clowns, hated Tetsuo for becoming an injection-fueled psychopath…..Kaneda was a junkie too. He had his own addictions.

 

It’s at times like this when he wonders whether, if their circumstances had been reversed, whether it would have been any different. Some dark corner in his mind whispers to him that if it were Kaneda that had inherited those powers, his own demented emotions would have taken over. The part of him that wants to be at the lead, driving headfirst into the madness of violence. The part of him that he’d taken pills to suppress.

 

Tetsuo had killed people. With the terrible powers he had inherited, he’d crushed the heads of whoever stood in his way.

 

Kaneda had taken a rusty pipe and bashed in the heads of clowns. He had a vague idea of how many people he’d sent to the hospital; at least 15. He had nothing in his system but a pill, and a disconnect between the soul and the mind that allowed him to swing his makeshift weapon without doubt, and to speed ahead of the rest of the gang without worry or care.

 

Kaneda had never tried to kill anyone; he wanted to show them their place, to show his dominance. To flaunt the power of his gang and taunt anyone who challenged them. But he remembers an instance...a clown member that never rode with his gang again after kaneda had knocked him off his bike, leaving him for dead in the middle of a busy street. Since that battle, the clowns had been out for Kaneda’s blood; street chases became bloody parades on the city highways.

 

He recalls Tetsuo viciously beating the clown that had attacked him, trying to restore his wounded pride with the infliction of physical wounds. He recalls his own unease at watching.

 

Tetsuo had never been so violent before. Something in Kaneda had recoiled in seeing it, even though he himself had done the same thing before, beating a man within an inch of his life for the hell of it. He didn’t want to see his friend become like himself. He’d never say it aloud, but he’d always felt as if Tetsuo was the one person that had kept him from going batshit crazy and killing himself in a wild chase or a fight. He wanted the Tetsuo of his childhood to remain pure and untainted with blood.

 

But Tetsuo had torn his wrist out of Kaneda’s hand. I don’t take orders from you, Kaneda. Got that?!

It didn’t show in his face. But at that moment, Kaneda’s gut had twisted in a sharp, invasive pain. The one person he thought he understood, he couldn’t understand anymore. Something in Tetsuo had revealed itself, and he realized that the boy he was looking in the eye wasn’t the same anymore.

 

Kaneda tries to recall in that moment, what had changed, but even now he can’t put his finger on it.

 

And yet. When Tetsuo looked him in the eye again, for the last time, his body rebelling against him and tearing itself apart, his power expanding beyond his control, his body devoid of color and his face beginning to distort….even with how different he’d looked, Kaneda had seen Tetsuo again. And their 7 years of friendship, their united stand against a world that was rigged against them, all came rushing back into his head like a tidal wave.

 

Kaneda is standing in the old classroom, remembering. And that feeling comes back. The feeling that he’s there, but not quite, lingering on the precipice like schrodinger’s cat. The feeling that he just MIGHT be there, if Kaneda turned around to look.

 

“FUCK.” Kaneda blurts out. “Just FUCK OFF!!”

 

The sensation remains, a tugging at his chest.

 

“God damn it…...You fucking bastard…..You leave me behind in this fucking dump, to cry over you as if none of this was your fault…..” He crushes one of the syringes underneath his boot, with a crunch of glass.

 

“Bastard. Bastard! BASTARD!” He starts walking in a vicious tight circle, eyes clenched shut. “You FUCKER! You wanted to see me powerless, didn’t you?! You wanted to see me suffer?!”

 

He stops, and throws out his arms as if presenting himself to some invisible entity. “Well look!! YOU GOT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANTED!!!” His voice cracks on the last syllable. “I’m powerless now! I know how you feel! is it enough for you? Is it enough, Tetsuo?!”

 

In the back of his mind he recognizes that if anyone overheard him from the outside, they’d think he was a lunatic; but he can’t stop, and it all comes pouring out.  

 

“You fucking have the nerve to make me miss you after all that you’ve done?! Why the FUCK should I remember you, you fucking SCUMBAG!” In his rage, he grabs one of the desk chairs and flings it at the wall with a crash. He then picks up another chair. “I HATE YOU!” He beats the chair against the wall, dents and cracks forming.

 

“Why, why, why, WHY, WHY!?” He flings the chair against the wall and it clatters to the floor with a resounding crash. Out of breath, Kaneda falls to his knees.

“Tetsuo…” His voice cracks again. This time for a different reason. He breaths in gasps as tears drip down to the floor. He clenches his eyes shut.

 

The sensation of a presence has only increased. Suddenly, he feels a pressure.

 

A hand on his shoulder.

 

It’s not like the other instances. He isn’t moving. He’s not on his bike, or in mortal danger. The hand just clasps his shoulder firmly, too much so to be a hallucination.

 

Kaneda reaches up and grasps the hand around the wrist. It is solid in his hand, corporeal.

 

Kaneda opens his eyes.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Kaneda feels like his organs are twisting into themselves

 

His gaze is penetrating. His face is clear and unmistakable, unlike how his expression had changed when he’d gone mad. His voice sounds the same too. He looks like he did before he mutated; pale all over, barely any color at all; but without the all encompassing rage. He looks like Tetsuo.

 

For a single, crystal clear moment, all is still. Kaneda has no doubt that Tetsuo is there. That Tetsuo heard.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Kaneda blinks, and Tetsuo’s gone again. He claws at the air in front of him, trying to find that solidity again.

 

“Tetsuo…..Tetsuo?!”

 

He looks around himself. He’s kneeling on the floor, reaching for the ghost of someone who left long ago.

  
  


Dazed, he wipes at his face and gets to his feet.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> really short chapter!!! sorry bout the wait.

 

Michi recalibrates the computer one more time, frowning. 

 

Once again, the flicker on the screen appears. It can’t be an error, then. The flickers kept on appearing and disappearing, at unpredictable intervals during the past few months. She couldn’t explain any of it. 

 

As far as she knew, both subject 28 and 41 had vanished in the final blast that had crippled the city for good, leading to the creation of the new society that called itself an “empire”. She still wonders why they chose that term, the same term that subject 41 had used to describe his ragtag group of homemade psychics. Pride? Some sense of one-upmanship? Strange. 

 

Now that they have effectively vanished, they’d expected for there to be no more Akira phenomena. And yet. Those little damn flickers. They aren’t nearly as powerful as the readings in their records, but they are there. Except, why do they appear and disappear? If an esper was within satellite range of the city, there would be a constant presence registering on her computer. Even the least powerful of espers would appear as a little red dot on the screen. It’s as if the energy readings are fluctuating in and out of existence.  

 

Perhaps….

 

The second Akira phenomena in history, the one that had obliterated Neo Tokyo, had reportedly created a temporary lapse in spacetime. About 6 weeks later, a rift had opened over the city, and the buildings and people that had been swallowed up in that explosion had simply reappeared. 

 

Remembering this, she wonders. 

 

~~~~~~~~

 

Kaneda makes his way out of the building. His mind is absolutely blank.

 

That didn’t just happen….but it did. Kaneda could still feel the remaining pressure on his shoulder where Tetsuo’s hand had been. He’s not one to distrust his own instincts. 

 

What the fuck is going on……

 

His boots crunch against gravel as he leaves the building. Reality seems foggy at the edges, like he’s having a fever dream. 

 

He mounts his bike again. Some logical part of his brain is screaming at him that riding his bike is a bad idea, but that voice is indistinct, blurred. 

 

He’s riding down the street. Too fast. And he hopes that maybe it’ll happen again. 

 

The blurred lines of passing buildings join together into an image. 

 

  


 

“TETSUO!” He shouts. He tries to speed up, to catch up to the apparition of his past. But his bike is at his limit.

 

He runs into a crack in the road, swerves, and wipes out. He is unconscious instantly.

 

Miles away, Kei feels her guts turn for no apparent reason, and she instantly feels something is wrong. While Kaisuke is distracted, sifting through his newly acquired cd collection, she steps outside. 

 

There is this ominous feeling. She wonders where Kaneda is.  

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another chapter. Kinda Kei centric  
> i recently read vol 4 again. and part of volume 5  
> and vol 6.  
> ok yeah im just kinda trying to wrench my own heart out at this point  
> please enjoy!!!

The flickering on her screen doesn’t go away for some reason, so Michi tracks it down. When she gets to the coordinates indicated by her computer, she finds a motorcycle on it’s side, and a guy lying by the side of the road where he’d obviously stopped after sliding across the pavement like a hockey puck. She runs to his side and looks him over, only to realize that he isn’t nearly as hurt as he could have been, though there is a painful looking scrape on the side of his face, and there is some swelling on the fingers in his left hand that suggest a few breaks. Considering that he isn’t conscious, he must’ve hit his head. Mitchi is sure that there are more injuries, possibly internally, but he’s still breathing, though it is shallow and his face is pale. 

 

He wasn’t wearing a helmet. How he survived with so little to show for it is a mystery to Michi. Why the readings led her to him, is an enigma. 

 

She whips out a walkie-talkie from her belt. “Hey, Parsons? Can you get a medical team to these coordinates….there’s a kid on the side of the road, and a red motorbike. I think he must’ve crashed into a ditch in the road and fell off…….WHAT?! Kaneda?”

 

She hadn’t noticed at first. She knew that Kaneda had been involved in Subject 41’s past, and had helped in “defeating” his power. But she’d never gotten a close look at his face, only seen him from afar, around the camp. God, he looks young. Too young to have seen all the shit that happened here. But she supposes there are younger people still who’ve survived in this wreck of a city. 

 

“Just….send a medical team with a truck and a stretcher. And tell Kei, she’ll want to know.”

 

~~~~

 

Kei walks into the sterile room. The medical center is one of the cleanest parts of the camp, but in a way that is more disconcerting than comforting. Kaneda lies in a bed in the middle of the room, his face and torso bandaged, his left wrist in a splint. There is an I.V. in his arm. 

 

“We’ll be giving him fluids intravenously for the next couple days, since he may not be able to eat due to his cracked ribs. He should be able to leave within the next week, but it will take him a few months to heal up completely, so i suggest he avoid riding that motorcycle altogether for a while.”

 

The doctor is a stern looking older man with a bushy moustache. He goes to her side and hands her the clipboard with all of Kaneda’s vitals on it. 

 

“Is he your boyfriend? I heard through the grapevine that you two are quite close.”

 

Kei sighs. “I…..no, he’s just a very close friend.” She looks at the unconscious man. “Without him, I don’t think I would have survived long enough to be here today.”

 

The doctor gently takes the clipboard from her hands, which fall limply to her lap. “Well, you might want to keep an eye on him while he recovers. I’m glad he has someone like you to watch over him.” He exits the room.

 

Kaneda’s face is placid in his sleeping state, but not relaxed. There is a furrow in his brow, like he’s thinking hard about something. Kei reaches to brush his bangs away from his face. 

 

Maybe she shouldn’t have broken up with him. He’d really relied on her for emotional support throughout those two months of chaos. He’d even vowed to kill his former best friend to protect her; it was obvious that he’d cared about her, loved her. She wonders if maybe, without the distraction of companionship, his own brain is eating him alive, from the inside out. 

  
  
  


There is suddenly a tingling, a buzzing noise in her ears. She looks around, but the source of the noise isn’t anywhere in the room. 

 

It is a familiar sensation. It’s been a long time, but finally she recognizes it. Her body and mind, merging with another person. The sensation is familiar, but the person is different. 

 

They are weak. They cannot control her completely, but somehow she can feel their emotions. Like their sheer feeling is the only thing anchoring them to her body. 

 

Seemingly of it’s own accord, her hands reach to wrap around Kaneda’s. First her right, than her left. She squeezes the limp hand between her palms. 

 

She hears the beginning of a sentence, echoing in her mind, in a voice she’s heard before.

 

_ I……I’m…… _

  
  
  


~~~~~

 

When Kei goes to bed that night, she has a dream. 

 

She is in a seemingly endless vacuum. She remembers it distantly as Akira’s energy, focussing inward in counterpoint to Tetsuo’s own power. 

 

Tetsuo is there. In the void. Drifting towards the ultimate annihilation of his body and soul. His body is restored, unmutated. She cannot sense the same power in him as before. 

 

He seems like a normal boy now.  

 

Kei watches from afar. Somehow, there is the knowledge that this is Tetsuo uncorrupted. The truth of his being, the part of him that lay dormant, asleep while some animalistic rage took hold. What she had once feared with every cell in her body, reduced to it’s basic form.   

 

_ Kei…..  _

 

She hears a voice, like the sound of several voices speaking in unison. She recognizes them. It isn’t just Kiyoko, or Akira, or Lady Miyako, or any of the other espers; it’s all of them, speaking as one. 

 

She looks around, searching for the source of the voices, but it is beyond sight. it echoes within her mind, from somewhere beyond this world. 

 

“Where are you?” she asks, into nothingness.

 

She feels her feet pulled down to a surface. The vacuum is no longer a vacuum, but a translucent white space, with no visible beginning or end. Tetsuo lies in front of her, collapsed, as if asleep. 

 

_ We are somewhere beyond human understanding. Somewhere beyond the stream…… _

 

Tetsuo stirs. His eyes blink open slowly. He is mouthing a name that she can recognize, though she cannot hear his voice for some reason. 

 

_ Kei.  _ The voice suddenly seems to boom through her mind with great power, and she winces. 

 

_ You know firsthand the destruction that a power like ours can bring. But you must also understand that it is what drives man to evolve. To become better...to become more.  _

 

“Yes….I do.” She thinks back to witnessing that immense power.

 

To witnessing the deterioration of Tetsuo’s mind. But also, the new life that sprang from the ashes of the destroyed city. 

 

_ Do you understand…..you must understand. That power, it binds us to each other. The isolation of the mind causes that power to eat away at the psyche like a mold…..but when that power is shared, it creates true understanding between people. It is why we could join our strength and absorb Tetsuo’s power.  _

 

_ It is the reason why you could bring Kaneda back from the edge of the stream, where he needs to be….but it is also the source of his suffering.  _

 

Kei feels her heart crumple on itself. “So….is it my fault that he is so unhappy? I want to fix it but…..” Her eyes well with tears. 

 

What would they have her do? She had to rescue him. She couldn’t simply let him be absorbed. She had loved him. She still does. 

 

_ Kei, the bond he shares with you, with his friend Kai, with all the friends that he made, is what ties him to this world. But his bond with Tetsuo ties him to the next. Or rather, he is what ties Tetsuo here. _

 

Kei blinks in surprise. “But……” She thinks.

 

Kaneda’s nightmares. His turbulent emotions.

 

It was as if he was the only one who hadn’t forgotten Tetsuo. The boy had faded out of the memories of the survivors...it was almost as if he’d never existed. People remembered Akira, in an abstract way, representing the power that each of them held within themselves, to build the city anew…….Tetsuo became as relevant as a bad dream. Only she and Kaneda, and Kai, and a few others, remembered. 

 

And, despite his overwhelming rage and anger, his unhinged motivation to kill his friend…...Kaneda mourned, after. 

 

He mourned, and he destroyed himself over it. Guilty for letting his best friend go. Guilty for mourning a psychopath. Guilty for wanting to forgive him. 

 

_ Kei.   _ She snaps out of thought. 

 

_ Tetsuo’s power was an enigma. He could control it, but in turn, it controlled him in ways he couldn’t understand. In the end, it was the power within Akira that called to him, using him as an outlet to release itself unto the world and cause destruction…. _

 

_ But……… _

 

Kei looks at the boy once again. He is getting to his feet, his stance wobbling, like he hasn’t walked in a long time. 

 

He looks her in the eyes, and unlike the last time…..she sees a human, not a monster. His eyes are tired, like Kaneda’s, like he’s been holding on for too long. 

 

“....Who are you, Tetsuo?” She asks, quietly. 

 

He slowly blinks. “I don’t know…….” He looks in the distance. “I used to ride bikes with my friends, but…...I killed so many people. I wanted to become more powerful, but….I don’t know why…..”

 

Kei feels an overwhelming emotion. It isn’t pity…..but somehow, she feels a pain in her soul. A bone deep empathy and sympathy. 

 

The uncontrollable compulsion to destroy…..to gain power. It includes destroying the self, doesn’t it. Now that he is powerless, that incredible energy absorbed by Akira, the pure essence of himself remains; his memories, his fears,his regrets, his emotions. His humanity. 

 

“You should have been absorbed ages ago, Tetsuo…...what ties you here?” 

 

Tetsuo is silent. A resounding voice answers. 

 

_ Kei. He cannot come with us. You are bound to Kaneda, and to the corporeal world…...as is he.  _

 

_ He would have normally been absorbed…...but.  _

 

_ Perhaps, he still possesses a power that we have yet to understand. A power that you hold. And that Kaneda holds too.  _

 

Kei feels herself slipping out of that world. Into her own mind, into wakefulness. 

 

Her eyes blink open, and she sees the dark, cracked ceiling of her bedroom. It is still very early morning. 

 

She thinks. 

  
Perhaps she can help Kaneda. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHHAHHAAH WOW I HAVEN'T PUBLISHED IN OVER 2 MONTHs I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON  
> I'd make a bunch of lame excuses but that's all they'd be. The fact is, Akira is a BITCH to write fanfic for because the logistics of the canon are sooooo FUCKING COMPLICATED. So I got lazy, and was distracted by other stuff...  
> BUT!!!!! I'm gonna try to get at least one more chapter up by the end of the month!! I can't promise it'll be a long one, but I'm working on it! So please bear with me, haha!   
> Please enjoy the chapter despite my rly messy illustrations, lol. Happy Valentines!

He’s sitting on the swingset, waiting for Tetsuo. The sun is setting….he pushes at the ground, pushing himself back and forth on the swing like a pendulum. Maybe he got in trouble with the teacher again. Or maybe he just went home without him……. 

Kaneda stares at his shoes. They’re scuffed up and torn, almost falling apart. 

 

Suddenly, he finally hears approaching footsteps, and looks up. “Hey, Kaneda!” Kaneda smiles, glad knowing he was not left behind. Tetsuo approaches him. “You really waited this long for me?” 

Kaneda grins. “ ‘Course! I wouldn’t leave ya behind.” 

They are walking home together, like they always do. Always did. The sun is low in the sky, setting earlier in the day as autumn sets in. Shadows are cast by the streetlamps onto the street. The sky is glowing pink and orange.

  


A breeze brushes by them, and Kaneda shivers. It’s unusually quiet.

 

It feels like something is off kilter. Like somehow the world was turned on it’s axis, and only Kaneda feels the altered pull of gravity. He feels like he’s forgotten something important. Flashes of memory dance before his eyes. 

  
  
  


Kaneda’s eyes shoot open, and he is gazing at a blandly colored tile ceiling, sunlight shining weakly through faded curtains. It takes him a moment to realize where he is. 

 

He remembers his old school. And Tetsuo. Not much else. The dream is still clinging to the edges of his consciousness, the sensation of being surrounded, the quickening of his heartbeat as he held in his palm something hot and heavy, and he was suffused with an incredibly urgent feeling. 

 

A flash of pain throbs through his right hand. His unbroken hand. He holds his palm in front of his eyes, blinking the sleep away.

A circular mark; a burn. Spreading across the palm of his hand like a brand. 

 

He moves to sit up, and is assaulted by more pain that digs into his abdomen. He lifts up his hospital scrubs to see nasty, colorful bruises across his ribs. He swears, muttering under his breath at the pain. “Motherfucker…”

 

There are footsteps coming down the hall to his room, and Kei is suddenly in the doorway. “Kaneda! You’re awake?” She rushes to the side of the bed, a concerned look on her face. “How do you feel?” 

 

Kaneda winces, groaning. “Like I’ve been run over by a tank...everything hurts.” He reaches up to touch his face and feels a bandage over his cheek. “What happened?”

 

Kei frowns. “You crashed your bike in the easternmost district….it’s a miracle you were only knocked around a bit….” She trails off and cups both sides of his face in her hands, turning his head so she can compare his pupils. “Does your head hurt at all?”

 

He pauses for a moment. “No…” Kei lets go of his face. “That’s good...We were afraid you might’ve gotten a bad concussion, since you were out like a light from the moment we brought you in. You’ve been out for almost 24 hours straight….” 

 

“Really?” Kaneda glanced at the window to see that it was indeed early evening.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoohoohoo, another short chapter!! Damn I love Kei to death, you guys don't even know.   
> Plus, Mitchy makes a comeback and there is some plot development.....wehehehe.  
> Sorry it's a bit short, but that's just the way I roll..... B 3

As Kei is leaving, Kaisuke comes in. He agrees to help Kaneda get home and stay at his place for a couple days, at least until he settles into a routine that doesn’t re-fuckup his already mangled body. As he passes her in the hall he gives her an exasperated half-grin that says “same old Kaneda, huh?”

Well, he’d probably know better than she does anyway.

 

She exits the makeshift hospital building, nerves feeling jumpy and out of shape, on edge like she was at the height of the action months ago, before that final faceoff. There’s something nagging at the edge of her mind like fabric snagged on a ragged edge, threatening to tear. Like she’s gazing down into past the precipice of fate into  **something** , if only she knew what it was. 

 

A woman approaches her, Mitchy; the person who found Kaneda on the side of the road. A tallish, Japanese-American woman with raggedly cut shoulder length hair and a stern brow. Kei’s always known that she wasn’t just another soldier helping out the settlement--her equipment was too advanced and delicate, and she carried it with her everywhere, seemingly searching for something like a bloodhound on a scent trail.

 

Nonetheless she decided to say nothing of it and be amicable; there’s no use in blocking the outside world from understanding all that had happened that had ravaged the city. 

 

“Kei…” she starts. “I have something to tell you, about Kaneda’s accident. We might want to go somewhere more private.” 

 

Kei drums two fingers against her side to calm her nerves. “Follow me, then. There’s a place near the embankment that’s quiet.”

 

\----

 

They sit down on the cracked edge of the concrete embankment that overlooks the bay, having overflowed in response to the changed tides. Mitchy pulls a bulky-looking laptop out of her bag, and opens it up. 

 

“I guess there’s no point in going around it, is there? I was sent by the UN to scout this place out.”

Kei laughs a little under her breath. “You didn’t exactly make efforts to hide that, did you?”

Mitchy shugs with a sideways grin. “Not really, considering there’s enough strangers milling around here already.” She logs into the computer and pulls up a spreadsheet full of numbers and coordinates.

 

“Kei, you were personally involved with dealing with subject 41, right?” Kei nods. 

 

“Yes…” She hesitates, not knowing how much to reveal. Mitchy intervenes before she has time to decide. 

 

“And, you have abilities of your own, don’t you? You served as a medium for the Espers formerly in Japanese custody.” It’s phrased like a question, but sounds more like a statement. 

 

“So you know this whole story already, huh.” 

 

Mitchy shrugs. “You haven’t exactly hid anything.” She turns her attention towards the screen. “Well, that’s not all, either. You and I share some abilities. That’s part of the reason why I was chosen to come here.”

 

Kei represses a surprised gasp. “So--you...you’re a medium?” 

 

“Yeah.” Mitchy nods. “You and I are most likely descendants of earlier members of the Project. There are other people like us working for the U.S. government, working to find more of us and how our abilities work. There might be other people too, around the world, their abilities untapped.”

 

“...Well, considering what happened to us here, I don’t think we WANT to tap into them anymore.”

 

“I agree.” Mitchy pulls up what looks like a current satellite map of the remains of Neo Tokyo, marked with little red dots accompanied by data, numbers and notes. “But therein lies the question.”

 

“All this data represents locations where disturbances in Neo Tokyo’s current energy field have occurred. The waves they put out are remarkably similar to that of an Esper, though they appear very briefly, almost too quickly for us to get a proper reading.”  

 

Kei takes a closer look at the data. “The strange thing is,” Mitchy continues, “is that the energy flickers into the field and back out of the field, rather than remaining constantly present. It’s like whatever--or whomever-- is the source of that energy, is flickering in and out of our plane of existence.” She pauses.

 

“I bring this up now, because I found Kaneda very close to these energy readings. And while he was in the hospital, there were some flare ups, that seemed to culminate around him. I know that Kaneda himself is perfectly normal but…” She rests her chin in her hand, staring thoughtfully at the screen. “These phenomena…I think they are connected to him, somehow. I have a few theories, but I would need to collect more data.” 

 

Kei is staring out across the sun dappled bay, lost in thought. She thinks back to the strange energy that took hold of her, the dream she had. 

 

A dream…...dreams. 

 

“...Mitchy, do you have any data on...Subject 41? On his energy readings?”

 

Mitchy nods, and pulls up the data, positioning the numbers side by side for comparison. Kei realizes that they must both be thinking the same thing. 

 

The numbers are similar. It’s only the pattern that differs. 

 

“It...maybe it really is him.” 

 

“But how can we explain the flickering?” Mitchy questions. “He can’t be simply turning his abilities on and off again….”

  
“No.” Kei agrees. “But, I have a theory…”  


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaagh!!! A new chapter!!! Finally!!  
> I'm sorry it's been so long between chapters lately ;-; schools' been giving me a swift kick in the ass and it's been hard to actually take time to write, plus this entire bit of the story is sort of hard to figure out.....well, excuses excuses.  
> I know a lot of this is really just meta disguised as angst lmaooo  
> Nonetheless please enjoy this chapter? I promise I'll try to get to some actual interesting plot soon!  
> Please comment and the like! I love hearing from you guys :D

Mitchy gets up from her seated position, silently thinking on the conversation.

Kei stares across the water. “I wonder if it really is him.”

“I’d say it’s a mystery what or who it is, but I were to gamble on it….” Mitchy shrugs her shoulders again. “Well, y’know. Gut feelings.”

“I guess you’re right. Numbers like that are too perfect to be a coincidence.” Kei too gets up. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Kaneda, though. I’m not sure how he’ll react.” She thinks back to the day in his apartment, the first real mental breakdown he’d ever seen him have.

The irony that of all the things to break his spirit, it would be the guilt after the fact. But then again, Kaneda’s never really faced the emotional repercussions of anything he’s done before. He’s ridiculously emotionally stunted.

“You probably shouldn’t tell him.” Mitchy answers. Before Kei can question her, she continues. “There’s no reason to. For now, we should lie in wait and see what happens.”

She kneels down to pack up her laptop, and throws the bag over her shoulder. “We’ve gotten ourselves in enough trouble trying to warn people about things, predicting the future, taking preemptive action….for now, we need to take things as they come.”

``````

Eeeeeeeeverything hurts. It hurts to move, hurts to walk, hurts to breath. The pain pisses him off to the point where he really, really, REALLY wants to overturn every piece of ratty furniture in his tiny living room, but that would hurt too. Also, Kaisuke would probably whack him upside the head for getting up in the first place.

So he silently fumes as he lies on the couch, breathing deeply and waiting impatiently for the pain meds to kick in.

He wishes he had someone to be angry at for this little accident. But, well, you can’t pin the blame on ghosts. And he isn’t about to admit that he’s been seeing shit, people would think he’s back to popping again. That couldn’t be further from the truth at this point; He’s been so turned off of drugs that even swallowing ibuprofen made him mildly nauseous. He’d almost refused to take them until the pain had become too much to bear.

Maybe pills fucked with his head permanently. He’ll forever be seeing ghosts of his past, until he finally decides to wipe himself out for real. At this rate, he’ll be dead within a year, probably. Not much different than what would’ve happened had all that Akira bullshit never happened.

But....

He sweeps his thumb across the burn on his hand. It doesn’t hurt, but the skin on his palm feels numb and rough under his fingers. It’s comforting.

He doesn’t know how it got there, but somehow it lets him know that he isn’t completely off the rails yet.

“So, have you tried listening to the radio at all lately?”

Kaneda knows where this is going. “Yeah. You got that little radio show going, right?”

Kai looks surprised, albeit happily. “How’d you know? Did somebody tip you off?”

Kaneda is about to laugh at Kai’s goofy face before he stops himself, the pain in his ribs flaring. “Nah, I just turned the radio on my bike on by accident. I think I caught your first broadcast.” He mimicks Kai in a high, nasally voice. “ Hi, I’m Kaaaaiiisuke! I’m a radio guy! I play music in English that nobody understands!”   
Kaisuke rolls up the old magazine he’d been reading and chucks it at Kaneda’s head from where he’s sitting on the other side of the room. Kaneda fails to prevent himself from laughing, which soon devolves into pained groans. “Fuuuuuccckkk!”   
He shifts in place, trying to get comfortable again. “Kai, don’t talk to me, your dumbass face makes me laugh and I can’t handle it.” Kai rolls his eyes. “Sure, keep on talking shit about the guy taking care of you, it won’t be long till I crack open a fucking joke book.” Kaneda goes stone cold, realizing that Kai can actually be really fucking funny. Kai’s a funny guy. If he uses that ability as a weapon, Kaneda wouldn’t be able to hold against that power.

“So. Radio gig sounds pretty cool. Tell me more about it. Got any new music?” Rapidfire.

“Well, I don’t have a lot of music right now, especially since internet access is so shitty here. But I have a ton of old alt rock cd’s from our buddies at the base….”

Kaisuke prattles on for a bit as Kaneda gets lost in his thoughts again.

He wasn’t really like this before the entire Akira business. He usually drove himself to such distraction that the only time he could ever think was either in bed staring blankly at the ceiling, or while speeding down the empty highway at ridiculous speeds. But lately he’s caught himself staring into space in the middle of fixing his bike, entangled in some abstract thought or memory. He must be losing his edge. Amazing; washing up at age 17.

The burn on his hand twinges unexpectedly, and he looks at the offending mark again, wondering how it got there.

He thinks of the dream, of holding something hot and bright clasped within his palm, beams of light radiating through his fingertips. The sensation of electricity suddening sparking through his body as he floated in a dark and empty void, fear suddenly melting away into devastating calm, like being returned to the womb.   
The odd feeling that what he was holding meant the power of the universe, the entirety of everything that existed and could exist. Sensation of something that he’d felt a proximity to, but never truly experienced for himself.

Something to fill the emptiness.

Something that he’d found in Tetsuo--

His train of thought stops there, almost as if by a self-defense mechanism. Thinking about Tetsuo is always difficult. It unlocks a door in Kaneda’s mind that he normally keeps firmly shut and tries to pretend isn’t there. But in the past month, thoughts and memories have seeped through the cracks, the door opening against his will seemingly of it’s own violation. Leaking out of his dreams and into his waking mind, plaguing him in moments when he’s alone with only himself and the deafening silence that this broken city is drowning in.

Epiphany after epiphany.

At the height of the action, if asked, he would’ve said he hated Tetsuo. That he was a disloyal scumbag, a psychopath. That Tetsuo meant nothing to him and he only wanted him dead.   
It had almost been true. Up until those final moments, Kaneda had never questioned those words. If anyone hated Tetsuo at all, Kaneda had hated him the most.

But then, Kaneda had been pulled into Tetsuo’s body, into the blinding light that was the last vestiges of his being. And that was the tragic irony of it all; he saw into Tetsuo’s memories and understood. With that came the bitter realization, that he’d been blind the whole time. It had taken the immeasurable force of the universe to understand the person that he’d always taken for granted. To see his suffering, how it had torn him apart.

Kaneda blinks, realizing he’d been staring at the ceiling for an indefinite number of minutes. He looks over at Kai, who had fallen silent.

“Uh,” he starts. “Sorry, I kinda spaced out there.”

Kai shrugs. “It’s fine.” He leans back in his chair. “But you’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

He sighs. “Yeah…..” Sweeps a hand across his eyes. “Just thinking about a lot of stuff. It feels like everything is only just starting to sink in.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Kai laughs a little, mostly at himself. “It’s kinda hard to adjust to all of…” He makes a vague sweeping gesture. “Everything. All of this.”

“Yeah…” Kaneda agrees, the word coming out in a forced exhalation.

“Though it’s--it’s not just that.” Kai looks at him wide eyed, waiting for him to continue.

Kaneda sighs again. “I’ve just...I’ve realized that I did a lot of things wrong, and I can’t fix any of it. Like--” He pauses, swallowing. His throat is closing up.

“Like getting everyone up against Tetsuo and the clowns…that was so stupid.”

Kai interjects. “But--we had to stop him. It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known--”

“Exactly! I didn’t know...And I didn’t give him a chance either. Of course he freaked out, it was a 50 to 1 fight.” He thinks back to the warehouse, Tetsuo had been backed into, littered with the bodies of Kaneda’s fallen allies. Yamagata’s head splitting on the pavement.

The unhinged look in Tetsuo’s eyes, like he was detached, possessed. Body betraying him, visibly shaking.

Kai leans his elbows on his knees. “Well--I mean…” He stops, trying to find the right words. “Ever since he came back from the hospital after that crash, he was weird. I’m not the only one who noticed it, right? Like, when he wouldn’t stop beating on that guy...”

Kaneda nods and turns back to face the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“But even before that. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a jackass, none of this would have happened.”

Kai looks at him for a moment, bewildered, before bursting into laughter. “Kaneda, what makes you YOU is that you’re a jackass!” Kaneda snatches the pillow from under his own head and chucks it at Kai’s face, but Kai catches it before it makes impact.

Kaneda sighs again. A beat of silence.

Kai hugs the pillow to his chest, leaning forward. “I guess it was the drugs and those weird powers that made him crazy, huh.”

Kaneda shrugs. “Kei says it’s the powers. They can fuck with your personality, I guess. Make you do crazy shit.”

“But…Akira, and those wrinkly kids, and lady Miyako…they were all pretty stable, weren’t they?”

“Yeah, but they’d been made in a lab, basically. I guess their brains were used to it. Anyway, Akira was the one who destroyed Tokyo the first time around, and he basically turned into a walking vegetable. So….I guess it just happens.”

“So, Tetsuo was the same way, huh.”

Kaneda says nothing.

“I guess there’s really nobody we can blame, except for maybe the doctors that made all this possible.”

“Yeah…”

Kaneda adjusts himself where he’s lying. It’s still uncomfortable, but the pain meds are kicking in, and he can breathe now.

So he takes a deep breath. “Kai, do you believe in ghosts? Or anything like that?”

Kai’s eyebrows raise. “Ghosts?” He leans his chin in his hand. “Hmm….I dunno. Maybe if I saw one, but I’ve never seen any before. Why?” He grins a little. “You seen one?”

Kaneda swallows, realizing he hasn’t told anyone about this yet. He slowly eases himself up until he’s sitting up against the couch cushions.

“Sort of.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp it's been almost ANOTHER MONTH because I'm SLOW and school SUCKS ASS  
> Honestly, powering through all this exposition is the biggest pain in the backside but HEY   
> enjoy this chapter bros, I'll try to get another one up soon in AT LEAST a couple weeks.

Telling Kai lifts a huge weight off his chest, but it doesn’t do anything to dampen the feeling that he might in fact be going nuts. Kai leans back in his chair again, letting out a long breath as he processes everything.

 

“So uh,” Kaneda picks at the pilling fabric of the couch, trying to get rid of his nerves. “Either ghosts are real or I really need a shrink.” 

 

Kai has an awestruck look on his face like he got struck by a bolt of lightning or something. “Come on, Kai,” Kaneda almost begs. “Say SOMETHING, man.”   
  


“...So you’re….being haunted??? By Tetsuo??”

 

“Well when you put it like that--” Kaneda grimaces and falls back on the couch, hand to his forehead. “Urgh. I guess I really am going fucking insane.” 

 

“Huh.” 

 

Kai says nothing for a moment, thinking.

 

“But….Maybe--uh….” Kaneda looks at him apprehensively. 

“Is it ...like when we saw Kei that one time? And she kinda floated through you, like you weren’t there?”

 

Something clicks in Kaneda’s mind. Is that it? 

 

“You told me--you were in, like...a rift, right? Because of the two explosions canceling out. And you kinda, leapt through time or something?” Kaneda nods.    
  


The implication hangs in the air. Kai says nothing, staring at the floor, frowning. 

 

Tetsuo, huh.

 

His ability to forgive can only go so far, he thinks. Months after, Kai’s had time to reconcile himself with the deaths of their friends, and the events that led up to that night. 

 

He remembers, months after joining the capsules, when news had gotten around that one of their classmates had died in a street fight with a rival gang; it was his first reality check, that they could die out there on the streets. By choosing to ride with the capsules, he was forced to face the mortality of both himself and his comrades. That was the life they’d chosen to live. 

 

Sometimes, Yamagata would squint at him warily, every time he tipped a little too far, choked on cigarette smoke. “You don’t have to do this, y’know.” He’d say. “Not everybody’s cut out for it.” Kai would always brush him off with a scoff and a sideways grin, even if he himself wondered, in the back of his mind. 

 

But ultimately, Kaneda was the one who called the shots  He was the one that offered Kai the bike in the first place, and if the head of the Capsules saw SOMETHING in him that nobody at school or in society could see, then by fucking god he was gonna stick by him. 

 

In the last few months he’s come to realize that Kaneda isn’t the pillar of strength that he seemed to be, before. He has vulnerabilities, makes mistakes. Made mistakes. And, perhaps, so did Tetsuo. But in retrospect, Tetsuo’s rise and fall was more akin to a natural disaster than the scheming of somebody truly evil. 

 

After all, Tetsuo was never the scheming type. He was street smart, yes, and an absolute demon on wheels, but establishing an empire? Nah. 

 

He and Tetsuo were never really close friends. But, Tetsuo had looked out for them in his own way, he supposed.  

 

Memories resurface, unbidden. Being handed a half-full pack of cigarettes, after his first ride with the rest of the group, to calm his nerves. Being driven home after one too many, clinging to Tetsuo’s ratty sweatshirt with Kaneda riding alongside as slowly as he could on his own machine. 

 

He remembers. On his birthday, the entire group had taken him out for a night on the town, passing around pills and bottles and trying desperately (and failing) to find some random girl in the bar that he could go home with before the night ended. By the end of the night he was more sober than he expected, the boys having imbibed more alcohol than he had. Tetsuo, also sober, sitting next to him at the bar, elbows resting against the surface, before reaching into his pocket and slipping something cool and metallic into Kai’s hand. 

 

“Kaneda picked it out, and I got the money,” He had stated, matter of factly. “You need something to defend yourself with sometimes, that isn’t a rusty pipe. So watch out for yourself.” 

 

Kai had looked down, bewildered, at the switchblade in his hand. Brand new. Must’ve cost an arm and a leg, too (at least for them).

 

“Jesus….” He’d flipped it around a few times, opening it to inspect the blade. “Thanks, Tetsuo. This is really great...”

 

Tetsuo had scoffed and looked away. “You’re one of us, so we look out for you. That’s it.”

 

Tetsuo. The guy with the chip in his shoulder, who carried bandages in his back pocket next to an old blade and his keys. The one who scoffed at their shows of friendship and then gave them rides back home after crazy nights. Who rode like a demon on the highway, but sat back in the bar and watched events unfold, instead of indulging. Who ended up paying bail whenever they got themselves arrested, though how he got the money, nobody knew. Tetsuo, who had his back. 

 

That Tetsuo had died long ago, in his place remaining a husk of what he used to be, driven to insanity by power and pressure, and fear. 

 

A few months ago, Kai knew what side he was on; but in retrospect he realizes, not everything is black and white. Now his anger has faded, he can see that cloudy gray area of convoluted events, a crisscrossed web of emotions and relationships, politics and science and uncertain motivations. All leading to what Tetsuo had become. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Kaneda knots his fingers together, staring at them unseeingly. When he speaks again, his voice is gritty, his throat tight. 

 

“So that would mean, Tetsuo is still alive…” The thought that Tetsuo isn’t dead, sends an indescribable feeling through him, like an electric shock. A strange combination of fear and thrill and relief. 

 

“Maybe…?” Kai stares at him solemnly. 

 

“When I was in that rift...Kei pulled me out.”

 

Kai gives him a strange look. “Do you mean--would you--want to bring him back?” His voice cracks a little bit on the last syllable.

 

Kaneda says nothing, staring at the floor, again.

 

He feels vaguely ashamed, that he would want to bring back the person who killed his friends and wreaked havoc on his hometown. How ridiculous, that all that bravado from before meant nothing now. But then he saw into Tetsuo’s heart, and something in him changed. 

 

Kai blinks at him in surprise, realizing that silence is the most reliable confirmation he’s gonna get.

 

“Wow, Kaneda.” 

 

Kaneda sheepishly scratches the back of his head, unable to look Kaisuke in the eye. 

 

“Well. I don’t really understand, but I don’t think I understood anything about all this in the first place.” Kai lets out a long sigh. “I guess if he wasn’t crazy anymore, it’d be ok.” 

 

He laughs, mostly to himself. “That would be so fucking weird, if he came back.” 

 

“Yeah.” Kaneda keeps debating within himself whether he should even be considering the possibility. 

 

Getting his hopes up.

 

God, the entire situation is so fucking stupid. He's practically fantasizing about bringing his friend-turned-psychopath back to life just so that he can get some emotional closure. 

 

How could he possibly justify to Kei, to Yamagata, to everyone who died by Tetsuo’s hand? How could he know that Tetsuo wouldn’t continue where he left off? That he still hated him? 

 

_ He didn’t hate you though, did he. He never hated you, that’s why he couldn’t kill you.  _

 

He swears his subconscious is starting to sound more and more like Kei. 

 

“This entire situation is one huge clusterfuck, isn’t it.” He mutters, mostly to himself. 

 

Kai nods. “The biggest.”

 

“...Sorry I’m such a hypocrite, Kai.” 

 

Kai scoffs. “Well, he was your best friend. It’d be kinda freaky if you didn’t have at least a FEW regrets.”

 

He looks at Kaneda earnestly. “And--well,” he pauses, trying to figure out how to get his point across. “You’ve always had good instincts so--” he gesticulates for a moment, frustrated. “The point is-- I trust you. So if you want to do something….something out there, I’ll be on your side, even if no one else is.” 

 

It’s the most touching thing anyone has ever said to Kaneda in his life, and he has to clamp down on his emotions for a moment before finally getting up and giving Kaisuke a bear hug. 

 

“Kai, you can’t just say shit like that out of the blue,” He states, even as he’s clasping Kai’s shoulders in his grip. “It’ll ruin my image!” 

 

Kai laughs. “WHAT image?” Kaneda gathers his head in the crook of his elbow and noogies him hard, laughing as Kai yelps and struggles out of his grasp.  

 

He sits back down. Somehow the fact that Kai actually trusts him, instead of just accommodating his emotional breakdowns out of some sense of pity...it lifts a 20 pound weight off his chest.

 

Of course, that could just be the ibuprofen finally kicking in. 

 

“...Well, I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong and you really are crazy.” 

 

Kaneda gets his implication.  

 

Tetsuo probably can’t come back from….wherever he is. The speculations of two delinquent teenagers don’t exactly hold much water.

 

“Yeah, but I guess I was pretty crazy anyway.” 

 

Kaisuke laughs. “That's true.”

 

~~~~~~~

 

Even days after talking with Mitchy, Kei is still full of pent-up nervous energy that she can’t seem to work out of her system. She’d even gone so far as to jog around the camp a few times, trying in vain to clear her thoughts. But nonetheless she kept on a singular train of thought that she was unable to derail.

 

So she stops trying. She runs, and tries to puzzle it out. 

 

She hadn’t considered until now that perhaps Tetsuo hadn’t disappeared, but maybe, had gotten caught in a rift like Kaneda had, so many months ago. Which would explain his constant flickering in and out of their dimension. 

 

She thinks back to her ‘dream’. Perhaps, it wasn’t so much a dream, as a premonition; the espers calling out to her, explaining. When they ‘took’ Tetsuo away, perhaps they weren’t taking him to a different place, but rather, a different time…..carrying him forward on a wave the same way Kaneda had been swept up and dropped two months in the future. 

 

In her dream, Tetsuo had seemed subdued, almost asleep. Like she wasn’t talking to him directly, but rather, to his dormant subconscious.  

 

The espers, in their united voices, had told her that Tetsuo was “tied to this world”.

 

She thinks back to Kaneda’s return from the rift. The second time, she’d dove headfirst into that swirling energy, hell bent on pulling him back into the material world. But the time before that….

 

That was when Tetsuo had gone through withdrawal in his desire for more power. He’d come to Miyako desperate for drugs, his mind on the verge of breaking, everything around him literally crumbling underneath the force of his agony. Suddenly, something had broken, and he rocketed into the sky, and the rift had opened. 

 

Perhaps, Tetsuo was the one to bring Kaneda back, that first time. Unknowingly. 

 

Kei doesn’t know what she should do with this information, really. 

 

She can’t reach back into the rift by herself. Even though she had possessed her own powers, she only could have controlled them with the help of the espers... but they’re long gone. 

 

When she slows down from a jog, she eventually stops by what she knows to be Mitchy’s makeshift office. Hesitantly, she knocks a few times before opening the door. Mitchy looks up from her clunky laptop, eyebrows raised. “Hi Kei, what’s up?” 

 

Kei shrugs. “Nothing really, just thinking a bit too hard about things.” 

 

Mitchy nods knowingly. “Been there.” 

 

Kei pulls up a chair and sits down as Mitchy begins to type rapidfire. “So, how’s Kaneda? Giving you any trouble?”

 

Kei laughs. “Not really, I guess he’s taking his injuries seriously for once.” Mitchy half-smiles, still typing.

 

A beat of silence, filled with the sound of tapping keys. 

 

“So.” Mitchy finally pushes her computer to the side. “The whole ‘rift’ thing, right?”

 

Kei nods. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking. I actually had a strange dream around a week ago…”

 

She explains her dream. Kaneda’s dreams. She was half-afraid that Mitchy might scoff at her, but instead she listened intently.

 

“Well,” Mitchy leans back in her chair, pressing her forefingers together to touch her lips before continuing. “The esper Kiyoko also had dreams, usually about future events. This is possibly in the same vein.” She frowns. “You would probably have to start taking pills if you wanted to further awaken your abilities.” 

 

“No, I don’t want to do that…” 

 

“That’s what I thought.” She looks at Kei. “Either way, it seems like your dreams are being influenced by somebody outside our sphere of existence…if our theory is correct, they are almost certainly involved, somehow.”

 

“Yeah. But,” Kei bites her lip worriedly. “I think….they want me to pull Tetsuo out somehow. I don’t know how I’d even do that, much less if I should.”Mitchy leans her elbows on her knees, listening intently. 

 

“I don’t think he really was responsible for everything that happened, but at the same time,” Kei frowns. “He killed a lot of people. He tried to kill me.” 

 

Mitchy shrugs. “I hate to play devil’s advocate, but tsunamis kill people, and yet we still swim in the ocean.” She leans back again, thoughtful.

 

“Honestly, it comes down to what is morally correct.” She gestures with one hand. “We can either leave him to deteriorate for eternity in an endless void, or,” she gestures with the other hand “We pull him out and see what happens.”

 

Kei gives Mitchy a look. “For a government spy, you’re being very diplomatic about this.” 

 

Mitchy shrugs, eyes growing cloudy as she relives old memories. “I guess I can’t help but be sympathetic. Something similar happened to me once, when I was a teenager.” 

 

There is a beat of silence as Kei’s eyes wide in surprise. “...Do you mean, this has happened before?”

 

Mitchy is quiet for a moment, wondering at the wisdom of sharing such sensitive information. 

 

Well. As far as she’s concerned, Kei knows “too much” already. So, in for a penny. 

 

Mitchy takes a deep breath before speaking. “In America, we have our own testing facilities. My grandma was sent to one in California after Tokyo was destroyed, and she got to lead a relatively normal life there.” As she speaks, she trails a finger along lines and knots in the wooden desk. “But she lived under close watch by the government, because there was a high risk of her abilities becoming hereditary.” A pause. “It skipped a generation with my dad, but then I was born.”

 

Kei suddenly realizes. “So, does that mean Tetsuo inherited his powers genetically?” 

 

Mitchy nods. “Almost certainly. Every single person that has been recorded with ESP either was a part of the Project or descendent of it.” She raises an eyebrow. “Honestly, it’s likely that you are too, considering your relations with the espers…”

 

Kei nods. “I think...my grandfather on my mother’s side…” Her mother had always told her stories about her grandfather, a sickly, but high-strung man with a heavy distrust of the government, constantly researching into the illicit activities of military-funded science programs. He’d instilled in their family the attitude of rebellion against tyranny, that inspired Kei to become an activist and join Ryu and the others in their terrorist activities. “He must’ve been. He was the one that told us about Akira in the first place, before he died.”

 

It makes sense, now. His suspicion, his theories; he must’ve had first hand experience. It all is suddenly clear.  

 

“So, you knew about Akira before all of this, huh.” Mitchy scoffs. “So much for confidentiality.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S UPDATING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN LIKE 400 YEARS??? THIS KID!!!!   
> School's gotten worse if anything, lmao. I can't lie, part of the reason I'm updating is to destract myself from all these LOOMING DEADLINES. That being said, I'm gonna actually focus on this fic, I promise! I just need to get the rest of my life together haha  
> This story is finally getting to the good part. Originally I was going to make it happen much sooner, but the nature of the.....scene?...made it really hard to make smooth transitions so I needed a lot of exposition beforehand. To all of you guys reading since the beginning, thanks for all your patience and support! This story is only beginning.  
> Anyway, here's a tiny baby chapter to tide you over! Sorry for the really long wait.

Kei leaves Mitchy’s little hideaway with her eyes opened just a little wider, after hearing Mitchy recount her own experiences with the American government. 

Kei knew that she was glossing over the details. Briefly, she had described what it was like, to live under constant watch, surrounded by scientists and observers, with few friends other than esper kids like herself. 

“...There were times, where kids would have meltdowns. Usually it was when they were going through withdrawls.” Mitchy had confessed, staring blankly at the desk, lost in memory. “Sometimes they’d do it on purpose, I think.”

“You mean suicide?” Kei asked, quietly. 

Mitchy gave a solemn nod. “It wasn’t so often, but every once in awhile.” 

Mitchy had been one of the espers to survive that sort of harsh childhood--by the skin of her teeth. She’d been caught in the same sort of temporal loop that Kaneda had, once.

“When we access our powers,” Mitchy explained, “We mentally connect to a continuous stream of energy, that we can control, at the price of our mental stability. We serve as proxies for immense power, but eventually the brain simply can’t take the pressure. It’s like...” She had then grabbed a loose piece of paper and a pen, drawing a simple diagram. “...like the brain is a series of tiny pipes, or wires....the more energy that flows through, the faster it flows, and the higher the pressure on the mind.” She put her pen down. “When I was a teenager, I had similar abilities as Tetsuo, though not nearly as powerful. Even so, I inevitably had a breakdown. I’m not sure how I got out again, only that my friends had something to do with it.” 

She paused. “It was like the pipes had burst, and that energy swept through my mind and rearranged everything...and the pressure was gone. I can still feel a current, if I concentrate. But I can’t control it.” Leaning back in her chair, she had a faraway look in her eyes. 

“That’s probably how it should be, though. No matter what we did, it was always the power controlling us in the end. We just weren’t aware of it before.”

The conversation plays on a loop in Kei’s head, fading into the background noise of her thoughts as she shifts into work mode, remembering the meeting she has to attend later that afternoon with some American dignitaries. Despite keeping busy, she goes through the rest of the day in a daze, on the verge of losing focus. Eventually, Chiyoko told her to go back to her room and rest for a while. “You’ve been working yourself too hard, and worrying too much. I can take care of the rest of this, you should take the rest of the evening to relax.” Despite her protests, she eventually found herself back in her sparsely furnished room, sitting on the edge of her bed.

On a whim, she looks within herself, and tries to find that current. The one she felt when Miyako channelled her power through her. Through that conduit, she remembers feeling an immense force. It was like standing in front of a huge dam, knowing the sheer volume of water it contained could crush anything in it’s path.   
She feels herself touch a faint thread, the remains of that connection. It is still, quiet.

Then it vibrates like a plucked string, emotions not her own reverberating through her mind, muted but recognizable. Fear, anxiety, confusion. She is so startled she loses her focus, and the thread once again slips out of her grasp. 

She thinks back to her conversations with Mitchy. The whole time, they had been speaking in hypotheticals, theorizing. Knowing instinctively that this was the truth, but being unable to really prove it. 

But Kei has undeniable proof now, at least to herself. 

A sudden wave of exhaustion washes over her, and she mindlessly toes her shoes off and climbs under the bedsheets, not bothering to take her clothes off.

I have to talk to Kaneda soon, she thinks, before she succumbs to sleep.


End file.
